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Associations of Work Stress, Supervisor Unfairness, and Supervisor Inability to Speak Spanish with Occupational Injury among Latino Farmworkers

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Abstract

Little is known about how psychosocial work factors such as work stress, supervisor fairness, and language barriers affect risk of occupational injury among Latino farmworkers. This study attempts to address these questions. Surveys were administered via interviews to 225 Latino thoroughbred farmworkers. Multivariable logistic regression analyses were performed to calculate odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) of occupational injury in the past year in relation to occupational characteristics. Work stress (OR 6.70, 95% CI 1.84–24.31), supervisor unfairness (OR 3.34, 95% CI 1.14–9.73), longer tenure at farm (OR 2.67, 95% CI 1.13–6.34), and supervisor inability to speak Spanish (OR 2.29, 95% CI 1.05–5.00) were significantly associated with increased odds of occupational injury. Due to the associations between work stress, supervisor unfairness, supervisor inability to speak Spanish and injury, supervisor training to improve Spanish language ability and equitable management practices is merited. Future research is needed to understand the antecedents of work stress for Latino farmworkers.

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Notes

  1. Elementary school defined as grades 1–6 to match the educational system most common in Mexico.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the farmworkers that participated in this study, the lay health promoters that recruited and interviewed the participants, and the members of the industry and community advisory councils that guided this work.

Funding

The work presented in this paper was supported by the CDC/NIOSH Cooperative Agreement 5U54OH007547-16. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of CDC/NIOSH.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Health Services Research, College of Medicine, University of Kentucky, 740 South Limestone St, J522, Lexington, KY, USA

    Jessica Miller Clouser

  2. Kentucky Injury Prevention and Research Center, College of Public Health, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA

    Ashley Bush

  3. Department of Preventive Medicine and Environmental Health, College of Public Health, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA

    Wenqi Gan

  4. School of Social Work, University of Maryland, Baltimore, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Jennifer Swanberg

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  1. Jessica Miller Clouser
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  2. Ashley Bush
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  3. Wenqi Gan
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  4. Jennifer Swanberg
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Correspondence to Jessica Miller Clouser.

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Conflict of interest

Jessica Miller Clouser, Jennifer Swanberg, Ashley Bush and Wenqi Gan declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Clouser, J.M., Bush, A., Gan, W. et al. Associations of Work Stress, Supervisor Unfairness, and Supervisor Inability to Speak Spanish with Occupational Injury among Latino Farmworkers. J Immigrant Minority Health 20, 894–901 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-017-0617-1

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