Determinants of occupational disease incidence in Mexico

Most occupational health researchers have studied individual determinants, tending to forget those causes that are universally present. To explore some determinants of occupational disease incidence in Mexico, the authors carried out an ecological study with data from 32 Mexican states. Using ordinary least squares regression, they explored associations between occupational disease incidence and the Gini coefficient, the percentage of small and median enterprises, and migration. Income inequality and the combined percentage of small and median enterprises were negatively associated with the incidence of occupational disease. In Mexico, the "population strategy" of the prevention of occupational disease suggests that big enterprises' contexts are related to a higher occurrence of occupational diseases. Further studies using multilevel approaches are needed to establish whether these occupational diseases are related to exposures present in big or in small and median enterprises.