Posted on 06/06/2008 8:26:30 AM PDT by stan_sipple
ATLANTA (AP) — Hispanic workers die at higher rates than other laborers, with 1 in 3 of these deaths occurring in the construction industry, a government study reported Thursday.
Hispanics tend to hold more high-risk jobs than those in other racial groups, but language and literacy barriers and poor training and supervision may also be factors, researchers said. The leading causes of death in recent years have been falls and highway-related accidents.
"Many of the Hispanic workers in construction are undocumented, and many of those who are recently arrived do face a language barrier," said Rakesh Kochhar, associated director for research at the Pew Hispanic Center.
"A language barrier hinders understanding of a job, or the risks associated with it, or safety precautions," said Kochhar, who was not part of the new study.
The study was done by health researchers in Massachusetts, Michigan and New Jersey and at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It's being published this week in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
The study counted more than 11,000 Hispanic work-related deaths nationwide from 1992-2006. The data were culled from death certificates, police reports, workers' compensation reports and other sources.
The researchers calculated an annual death rate of 5 per 100,000 Hispanic workers in 2006. But the rate for foreign-born Hispanics, roughly 6 per 100,000, was far higher than the 3.5 for those born in the United States.
The rate for non-Hispanic white workers was 4. For blacks, it was 3.7.
"The burden of risk is primarily on foreign-born workers," said Scott Richardson, a Bureau of Labor Statistics program director, in a Thursday telephone press conference about the new report.
From 1992-96, murder on the job was the most common cause of death among Hispanic workers, with crimes like convenience store robberies contributing heavily to that tally.
Then highway accidents became the leading type of work-related fatality. Falls also have become common, and were the leading cause of death in 2000 and 2006.
An analysis of the most recent deaths, from 2003-06, found that 2 of every 3 Hispanic workers who died on the job were foreign-born. That's up from 1992, when immigrants accounted for about half of Hispanic work-related deaths.
In recent years, about 70 percent of the foreign-born fatalities were from Mexico.
In 2003 through 2006, the highest numbers of Hispanic work-related deaths were in California, with 773 deaths; Texas, with 687; and Florida, with 417.
But the highest death rate for Hispanic workers was in South Carolina, at about 23 per 100,000. A recent influx of primarily foreign-born workers might account for that, experts said.
Hispanics make up about 14 percent of the nation's working age population, according to a report this week by the Pew Hispanic Center, a Washington-based research organization.
On the Net: CDC publication: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr
Que?
Lou Dobbs and Rush Limbaugh stirring things up on the job (sarc)
Well, when you come up and work construction without speaking English and you displace a large percentage of other workers it only follows your incident rate will increase.
Maybe they should have reversed the findings and announced that Caucasian death rates had fallen drastically. I guess that wasn’t in their agenda though.
You first Im half coonass.
Just send them all back home for their own safety.
It’s a “government study” so it must be true!
America's dirty little secret: cheap foreign labor has driven the lower end of the labor force for nearly two centuries.
Of course, the media has to make a big deal out of this. Can't we just abolish the "hispanic" category anyway? Why is it that the American government puts everyone from Latin America (whether they be white Argentineans or mestizo Mexicans) into one category anyway?
"No hable inglish!"
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!"
these workers need better training on how to stage less harmful work accidents.
From my own experience Hispanic are more willing to take risks on job. That willingness cost one fellow his life where I last worked.
You think? You pay subpar wages and you will get underskilled workers.
I'd rather be called white devil, peckerwood, or Ofay than "caucasian."
“The researchers calculated an annual death rate of 5 per 100,000 Hispanic workers in 2006. “
Keep them home and there won’t be any casualties, other than by their own countrymen!
How about the death rate of US citizens by murder or drunk driving by ‘hispanics’? I bet it’s more than 5 per 100,000.
If you'd move south from that God-forsaken state you live in, I'll put in the paperwork to make you an honorable "cracker."
Looks like someone found a way to counter the influx of illegals over our borders...
Doesn't this just make you want to heave your oatmeal? For God's sake, who made these people come here, not learn the language, use fraudulent IDs, anyway?
Since when is it the fault of the U.S. when someone sneaks into our country, knows no or very little English, steals or buys stolen IDs, then gets a job that should go to an American citizen or at the very least, someone with permission to work here?
"Hurt on the job?" Go home where you understand not only the language, but the work standards, etc.
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