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

描述（由申请人提供）：近年来，美国劳工法规的执行力度一直在下降，每年违反童工的数量在数十万，在减少年轻工人职业死亡人数方面进展甚微。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违反劳动和安全规定之间的关系。了解这一问题并制定改进策略是本研究的目标，也是解决国家职业研究议程（NORA）长期关注创伤性伤害和年轻工人作为特殊风险人群的目标。为实现这一目标，这项研究将采用一种创新的混合方法，将研究结果带到实地，并与当地利益攸关方（即执法和公共卫生官员）接触，以影响地方一级的变革，这种方法有助于国家职业安全与卫生研究所的“从研究到实践”倡议。该研究的第一个目的是了解违反童工法和/或健康和安全标准与青少年职业死亡的关系程度，方法是利用北卡罗莱纳州法医系统（全国最好的法医系统之一）提供的优秀数据，该系统由400名法医组成，他们对死亡事件进行彻底调查，并将这些发现报告给首席法医办公室，该办公室保存着调查数据。第二个目的是通过检查联邦和NC监管机构对确定的年轻工人死亡事件进行的调查的程度和性质，探讨当前的执法环境如何对这种关系产生影响。这些数据是公共记录，可应要求从有关当局获得。最后一个目标是通过焦点小组、深度访谈和多组织顶点会议，与一系列当地利益相关者接触，确定当前执法方面的挑战，制定克服这些挑战的战略，并改善对年轻工人的保护。这项研究将加深我们对最严重的职业伤害和死亡的理解，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-使用参与式方法分享我们的发现，并与利益相关者合作制定预防策略。这项工作解决了NIOSH的战略目标，即通过干预、建议和能力建设促进工作场所的安全和健康，NORA呼吁在多个专业学科、行业、机构和团体之间进行合作，它认识到这对制定和实施减少职业伤害的预防战略至关重要。在北卡罗来纳州，这项研究与其他司法管辖区在减少我们最年轻和高度脆弱的工人的致命和非致命伤害方面面临类似挑战有关。这项研究推进了我们对最严重的职业伤害和死亡的理解的深度，这些伤害和死亡发生在青少年中，在美国每周超过一次。该项目将调查青少年职业死亡与违反劳动和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促使其参与，以改进法规的执行和遵守情况，以便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.