Risk factors associated with adverse health and safety outcomes in the US Hispanic workforce

Background: Historically, jobs that are high in physical labour such as construction, farming, fishing, mining and manufacturing tend to have the highest accident and fatality rates. Many working in these sectors, particularly of Hispanic origin, have been experiencing higher numbers of accidents than workers from other backgrounds. Objective: To investigate adverse safety and health outcomes among Hispanic workers in the US associated with risk factors by means of a systematic review of analytical studies. Methods: A keyword search was used within several academic databases to search for applicable articles. A critical appraisal was carried out to evaluate the selected studies according to epidemiological principles. Results: The critical appraisal of six relevant studies revealed that lack of education and training, language barriers, culture barriers and job type are risk factors associated with adverse safety and health outcomes in Hispanic workers in the US. However, results may be limited due to a need for specific information regarding subject loss and issues regarding generalization to eligible populations. Conclusions: There is still a need for studies investigating the relationship between specific risk factors and their influence on immigrant workers. Research should take into account other variables such as immigration status and develop proper interventions to assess the effectiveness of prevention methods such as proper bilingual safety training.