Young Worker Fatalities and Violations of Labor and Safety Regulations: Moving To

描述（由申请人提供）：近年来，美国劳动法规的执行一直在下降，每年有数十万起童工违法行为，在减少年轻工人职业死亡人数方面几乎没有取得进展。有证据表明，当年轻人被非法雇用时，可能会发生非致命伤害，但很少有研究关注致命的年轻工人伤害与劳动和安全违规行为之间的关系。了解这个问题，并产生改进策略是本研究的目标，是解决国家职业研究议程（诺拉）长期关注创伤性损伤和年轻工人作为一个特殊的风险人群。为了实现这一目标，研究将采取创新的混合方法，包括将研究结果带到实地，并与当地利益攸关方（即，这一方法有助于国家职业安全和健康研究所的“从研究到实践”倡议。 这项研究的第一个目的是了解违反童工法和/或健康和安全标准的行为在多大程度上与青少年职业死亡有关，方法是利用北卡罗来纳州法医系统（全国最好的法医系统之一）内的优秀数据。由400名检查员组成，他们对死亡事件进行彻底调查，并将调查结果报告给存放调查数据的首席医疗检查员办公室。第二个目的是探讨目前的执法环境可能会对这种关系的影响，通过研究的程度和性质进行调查的联邦和NC监管机构对确定的年轻工人死亡。这些数据是公开记录，可应要求向有关当局索取。最后一个目标是通过焦点小组、深入访谈和多组织顶点会议，与一系列当地利益攸关方接触，确定当前执法面临的挑战，并制定克服这些挑战和改善对青年工人保护的战略。 这项研究将推进我们对最严重的职业伤害，死亡的理解的深度，扩展早期对NC年轻工人的研究，并增加一个创新的组成部分-使用参与式方法来分享我们的研究结果，并与利益相关者合作制定预防策略。这项工作涉及NIOSH的战略目标，即通过干预措施、建议和能力建设促进安全和健康的工作场所，以及诺拉呼吁多个专业学科、行业、机构和团体之间的合作，它认为这对制定和实施预防战略以减少职业伤害至关重要。基于NC，这项研究与面临类似挑战的其他司法管辖区在减少我们最年轻和高度脆弱的工人中的致命和非致命伤害方面具有相关性。这项研究推进了我们对最严重的职业伤害和死亡的理解，这些伤害和死亡发生在美国青少年中，每周超过一次。本研究将调查青少年职业死亡与违反劳动安全法规之间的关系。然后，它将利用这些调查结果向当地利益攸关方提供信息，并使其参与进来，以改善法规的执行和遵守情况，从而更好地保护年轻工人的健康和生命。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): In recent years, enforcement of US labor regulations has been on the decline, child labor violations number in the hundreds of thousands annually, and little progress has been made in reducing the number of young worker occupational fatalities. Evidence shows that non-fatal injuries can occur when youth are illegally employed yet little research has looked at the relationship between fatal young worker injuries and labor and safety violations. Understanding this problem and generating strategies for improvements are the goals of this study and are ones that address the National Occupational Research Agenda's (NORA) longstanding focus on traumatic injury and young workers as a special population at risk. To achieve this goal, the study will take an innovative mixed-methods approach that involves taking the findings into the field and engaging with local stakeholders (i.e., enforcement and public health officials) to affect change at the local level an approach that contributes to the Research-to-Practice initiative of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. The first aim of the study is to understand the extent to which violations of child labor laws and/or health and safety standards are related to adolescent occupational fatalities by capitalizing on the excellent data available within the North Carolina medical examiner system - one of the nation's best - consisting of 400 examiners who carry out thorough investigations of fatalities and report these findings to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner where investigation data are housed. The second aim is to explore how the current enforcement environment might have an impact on this relationship by examining the extent and nature of investigations carried out by federal and NC regulatory agencies on identified young worker fatalities. These data are public record and available from the respective authorities upon request. The last aim is to identify current challenges in enforcement and develop strategies to overcome these challenges and improve the protection of young workers by engaging with a range of local stakeholders through focus groups, in-depth interviews, and a multi-organizational capstone meeting. This study will advance the depth of our understanding of the most serious occupational injuries, fatalities, extending earlier research on young workers in NC and adding an innovative component - the use of participatory methods to share our findings and engage with stakeholders to develop prevention strategies. This work addresses the NIOSH strategic goal to promote safe and healthy workplaces through interventions, recommendations and capacity building and NORA's call for collaboration among multiple professional disciplines, industries, agencies, and groups, which it recognizes as being essential to the development and implementation of prevention strategies to reduce occupational injuries. Based in NC, this study has relevance to other jurisdictions facing similar challenges in reducing fatal and non-fatal injuries among our youngest and highly vulnerable workers. This research advances the depth of our understanding of the most serious occupational injuries, fatalities, which occur among adolescents at a rate of more than one every week in the US. This project will investigate the relationship between adolescent occupational fatalities and violations of labor and safety regulations. It will then use these findings to inform and engage local stakeholders to improve enforcement and compliance with regulations in order to better protect the health and lives of young workers.