Latinos have highest on-job death rate

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

ATLANTA - Hispanic workers die at higher rates than other laborers, with one in three of these deaths occurring in the construction industry, a government study reported Thursday.

Hispanics tend to hold more high-risk jobs than those in other racial groups, but language and literacy barriers and poor training and supervision also may be factors, researchers said.

The leading causes of death in recent years have been falls and highway-related accidents.

"Many of the Hispanic workers in construction are undocumented, and many of those who are recently arrived do face a language barrier," said Rakesh Kochhar, associated director for research at the Pew Hispanic Center.

The researchers calculated an annual death rate of five per 100,000 Hispanic workers in 2006. But the rate for foreign-born Hispanics, roughly six per 100,000, was far higher than the 3.5 per 100,000 for those born in the U.S.

The rate for non-Hispanic white workers was four. For blacks, it was 3.7.

The study was done by researchers in Massachusetts, Michigan and New Jersey and at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It appears in this week's CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Nice that we have stats on this. Now what are we going to do about it?