Frequency and Risk of Occupational Health and Safety Hazards for Home Healthcare Workers

Suarez, Rassull; Agbonifo, Noma; Hittle, Beverly M; Davis, Kermit G.; Freeman, Andrew M.

doi:10.1177/1084822317703936

Cited by 13 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…In the United States, nearly 90% of home health care workers are women. 4 This was reflected among the studies identified: 13 reported on the gender makeup of their samples, ranging from 86% females 27 to 95% females. 15,22,30,31 Two studies surveyed only women health care workers’ experiences.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Home Health and Community Care Workers’ Occupational Exposure to Secondhand Smoke: A Rapid Literature Review

Angus

Semple

2018

Nicotine &Amp; Tobacco Research

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IntroductionAlthough many workers are protected from exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke (SHS), home health and community care workers enter domestic settings where SHS is commonly present. Little is known about the extent of SHS exposure among this occupational group.MethodsA rapid review to examine the literature on home health and community care workers’ exposure to SHS at work and identify research gaps. Systematic searches combining terms for SHS exposure (eg, “tobacco smoke pollution”) with terms for home health and care workers, patients and settings (eg, “home health nursing”) were run in CINAHL and Medline (with no date or language limitations). Web site and backward-forward citation searches identified further papers for narrative review.ResultsTwenty relevant publications covering seventeen studies considered home health or community care workers’ exposure to SHS either solely or as part of an assessment of other workplace hazards. Eight studies provided data on either the proportion of home care workers exposed to SHS or the frequency of exposure to SHS. No studies provided quantification of SHS concentrations experienced by this group of workers.ConclusionsExposure to SHS is likely to be common for workers who enter private homes to provide care. There is a need for research to understand the number of workers exposed to SHS, and the frequency, duration, and intensity of the exposure. Guidance should be developed to balance the rights and responsibilities of those requiring care alongside the need to prevent the harmful effects of SHS to workers providing care in domestic settings.ImplicationsVery little is known about home health and community care workers’ exposure to SHS. There is a need for research to quantify how many workers are exposed, how often and for how long exposure occurs, and the concentrations of SHS experienced. In many countries, home health care workers may be one of the largest working groups that experience exposure to SHS as part of their employment. The public health community needs to engage in a debate about how home health care workers can be best protected from SHS.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Home Health and Community Care Workers’ Occupational Exposure to Secondhand Smoke: A Rapid Literature Review

Angus

Semple

2018

Nicotine &Amp; Tobacco Research

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“…We used a bibliometric Science Mapping tool to visualize the international collaboration network and found that the top ten countries with the largest number of publications (Figure 3.) include America (83), Canada (42), Brazil (39), England (30), France (12), Spain (11), the Netherlands (11), South Africa and China (11), accounting for 67.16% of the total publications. Combined with Table 1, it can be found that Americas accounted for 60.74%, and Europe accounted for 31.11% of the total outputs in the top ten countries and also played vital roles in establishing links with other countries.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(3) Research on HHCWs should receive more attention. In view of the aging of the population, the increasing cost of chronic diseases and health care, more people need to be treated at home, which increases the demand for more HHCWs [30]. HHCWs may also be injured by musculoskeletal disorders [90], stress [33], exposure [91], etc.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The research area distribution showed the high priority of public environmental and occupational health, general internal medicine, infectious diseases, nursing, microbiology and psychology. The international collaboration network revealed the top ten countries with the largest number of publications ( Figure 3) including America (83), Canada (42), Brazil (39), England (30), France (12), Spain (11), the Netherlands (11), South Africa and China (11) accounted for 67.16% of the total publications. The most-contributing author was Yassi A; however, there was deficiency in cooperation between each author.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The third is Brazil (39) in South America. Four prominent nodes in Europe include England (30), France (12), Spain (11), and the Netherlands (11) ranked fourth, seventh, eighth and ninth. South Africa ranks fifth with 18 articles published.…”

Section: International Productivity and Collaboration Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

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Mapping the Scientific Research on Healthcare Workers’ Occupational Health: A Bibliometric and Social Network Analysis

Zhu

Fan

Xie

et al. 2020

IJERPH

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In the last few years, the occupational health (OH) of healthcare workers (HCWs) has been shown increasing concern by both health departments and researchers. This study aims to provide academics with quantitative and qualitative analysis of healthcare workers’ occupational health (HCWs+OH) field in a joint way. Based on 402 papers published from 1992 to 2019, we adopted the approaches of bibliometric and social network analysis (SNA) to map and quantify publication years, research area distribution, international collaboration, keyword co-occurrence frequency, hierarchical clustering, highly cited articles and cluster timeline visualization. In view of the results, several hotspot clusters were identified, namely: physical injuries, workplace, mental health; occupational hazards and diseases, infectious factors; community health workers and occupational exposure. As for citations, we employed document co-citation analysis to detect trends and identify seven clusters, namely tuberculosis (TB), strength training, influenza, healthcare worker (HCW), occupational exposure, epidemiology and psychological. With the visualization of cluster timeline, we detected that the earliest research cluster was occupational exposure, then followed by epidemiology and psychological; however, TB, strength training and influenza appeared to gain more attention in recent years. These findings are presumed to offer researchers, public health practitioners a comprehensive understanding of HCWs+OH research.

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Workers' compensation costs for healthcare caregivers: Home healthcare, long‐term care, and hospital nurses and nursing aides

Davis

Freeman

Ying

et al. 2021

American J Industrial Med

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Background: Healthcare workers (nurses and nursing aides) often have different exposures and injury risk factors depending on their occupational subsector and location (hospital, long‐term care, or home health care). Methods: A total of 5234 compensation claims for nurses and nursing aides who suffered injuries to their lower back, knee, and/or shoulder over a 5‐year period were obtained from the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation and analyzed. Injury causation data was also collected for each claim. The outcome variables included indemnity costs, medical costs, total costs, and the number of lost work days. The highest prescribed morphine equivalent dose for opioid medications was also calculated for each claim. Results: Home healthcare nurses and nursing aides had the highest average total costs per claim. Hospital nurses and nursing aides had the highest total claim costs, of $5 million/year. Shoulder injuries for home healthcare nursing aides (HHNAs) had the highest average total claim costs ($20,600/injury) for all occupation, setting, and body area combinations. Opioids were most frequently prescribed for home healthcare nurses (HHNs) and nursing aides (18.9% and 17.7% having been prescribed opioids, respectively). Overexertion was the most common cause for HHN and nursing aide claims. Conclusions: With the rapidly expanding workforce in the home healthcare sector, there is a potential health crisis from the continued expansion of home healthcare worker injuries and their associated costs. In addition, the potential for opioid drug usage places these workers at risk for future dependence, overdose, and prolonged disability. Future research is needed to investigate the specific and ideally reversible causes of injury in claims categorized as caused by overexertion.

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Frequency and Risk of Occupational Health and Safety Hazards for Home Healthcare Workers

Cited by 13 publications

References 24 publications

Home Health and Community Care Workers’ Occupational Exposure to Secondhand Smoke: A Rapid Literature Review

Home Health and Community Care Workers’ Occupational Exposure to Secondhand Smoke: A Rapid Literature Review

Mapping the Scientific Research on Healthcare Workers’ Occupational Health: A Bibliometric and Social Network Analysis

Workers' compensation costs for healthcare caregivers: Home healthcare, long‐term care, and hospital nurses and nursing aides

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