Does obesity contribute to non-fatal occupational injury among male workers? Evidence from NLSY79

Background: Recent literature suggests that obesity may be a risk factor for injury at the work place. However, most of the previous studies seemed to suffer from a variety of methodological and measurement issues and failed to prove the linkage between the two.

Data and Methods: To address these issues, first we utilize the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY1979), a nationally representative cohort born 1957-1965. Second, to better characterize workplace dangers, we draw on the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT), as well as variables from the NLSY79 main data such as wage and the hours worked. Last but not least, to properly account for unobserved differences, we utilize random- and fixed-effects model to estimate the effect of obesity (in one-year lagged value) on the occurrence of injury.

Results: The odds of sustaining injury at work are significantly higher among overweight/obese workers than workers of normal weight. The fixed effects model show that the odds are 52% (p<0.01), 68% (p<0.01) and 145% ((p<0.001) higher among male workers with BMI between 27.5 and 30, 30 and 35, and over 35, respectively; the results from the random-effects model are similar but the magnitudes are less stronger.

Conclusions: Our results show that overweight/obesity does predispose male workers with a substantially increased risk of injury at the workplace as unobserved differences are appropriately controlled. However, in designing prevention policy, further studies are needed to evaluate the feasibility of providing weight reduction programs at the workplace.