8281694 The social division of work injuries through occupation and industry: A synthetic measure based on massive French administrative data

<h3>Objective</h3> Work-related injuries are a major social and public health problem, which can lead to a considerable reduction in healthy life years and carry a great potential for prevention. Our aim was to measure occupational inequalities in work-injury rates in France, using the largest source of information currently available, and a method recently developed by others to study occupational disparities in fatal work injury in North-Carolina. <h3>Material and Methods</h3> We focused on ‘lost-time injuries’ defined as accidents leading to financial compensation, using exhaustive work injury claims for private sector employees over the 2006-2012 period in France. At-risk population counts were primarily extracted from detailed census data. We estimated a standardized work-injury ratio (SIRx) using inverse probability weighting, with non-managers as the reference population, stratifying on industry. We used the method flexibly with alternative at-risk population based on exhaustive administrative data, then looking at severe injuries. <h3>Results</h3> The rate of lost-time injury was more than ten times higher in non-managers (4 031/100 000p.y.) as compared to managers (365/100 000p.y.) overall, based on 4 670 620 accidents registered over the study period. This corresponded to a SIRx of 11.4 [6.8;14.5]. A ratio above 1 indicates work environments where non-managers are exposed to higher risks compared to their manager counterparts, adjusting for the age structure of the workforce. Our results show that the most pronounced differences occurred in manufacturing industries, as well as transportation and warehousing, with SIRx above 12. <h3>Conclusion</h3> The gap in work injuries is large and varies according to the social division of work and hazards which is highly dependent on factors such as trade sector, company size, and actual job content. These findings have policy implications as they underscore the importance of workplace equity and the need to improve health and safety for non-managers in key industries in France.