Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2019, 16(3), 433; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16030433
Association between Occupational Injury and Subsequent Employment Termination among Newly Hired Manufacturing Workers
1
Department of Occupational and Environmental Health, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA
2
University of Iowa Injury Prevention Research Center, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA
3
Healthier Workforce Center of the Midwest, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Received: 14 December 2018 / Revised: 16 January 2019 / Accepted: 31 January 2019 / Published: 2 February 2019
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Using Total Worker Health to Advance Worker Health and Safety)
Abstract
Few longitudinal studies have examined occupational injury as a predictor of employment termination, particularly during the earliest stages of employment when the risk of occupational injury may be greatest. Human resources (HR) records were used to establish a cohort of 3752 hourly employees newly hired by a large manufacturing facility from 2 January 2012, through 25 November 2016. The HR records were linked with records of employee visits to an on-site occupational health center (OHC) for reasons consistent with occupational injury. Cox regression methods were then used to estimate the risk of employment termination following a first-time visit to the OHC, with time to termination as the dependent variable. Analyses were restricted to the time period ending 60 calendar days from the date of hire. Of the 3752 employees, 1172 (31.2%) terminated employment prior to 60 days from date of hire. Of these, 345 terminated voluntarily and 793 were terminated involuntarily. The risk of termination for any reason was greater among those who visited the OHC during the first 60 days of employment than among those who did not visit the OHC during the first 60 days of employment (adjusted hazard ratio = 2.58, 95% CI = 2.12–3.15). The magnitude of effect was similar regardless of the nature of the injury or the body area affected, and the risk of involuntary termination was generally greater than the risk of voluntary termination. The results support activities to manage workplace safety and health hazards in an effort to reduce employee turnover rates. View Full-Text
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).

Share & Cite This Article
MDPI and ACS Style
Huizinga, N.C.; Davis, J.A.; Gerr, F.; Fethke, N.B. Association between Occupational Injury and Subsequent Employment Termination among Newly Hired Manufacturing Workers. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2019, 16, 433.
Note that from the first issue of 2016, MDPI journals use article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.
Related Articles
Article Metrics
Comments
[Return to top]
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health
EISSN 1660-4601
Published by MDPI AG, Basel, Switzerland
RSS
E-Mail Table of Contents Alert