Working women at risk. Results from a survey of Hispanic injury patients.

Women experience lower rates of occupational injury than do men in general, but subgroups are at increased risk. Based on the medical records of 2572 injury patients requesting treatment in a Washington, DC, emergency department during a 1991 survey of injured Hispanics, we found that whereas women in general had a low risk of occupational injury. Hispanic women did not realize this protection. All Hispanics were at increased risk of occupational injury, but the relative risk attributable to ethnicity for Hispanic women (3.83; 95% confidence interval, 2.85,5.14) was nearly twice that of the corresponding relative risk suffered by working Hispanic men (2.07; 95% confidence interval, 1.72,2.48). It was also found that whereas, overall, women had a lower risk of assault than did men, relative risks of assault based on sex were the same in the workplace.