Work injury risk among young people with learning disabilities and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in Canada

We sought to gain a better understanding of the relationship between learning disabilities, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and risk of occupational injury among young workers.

We assessed 15- to 24-year-old workers (n = 14 379) from cycle 2.1 of the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS). We gathered data on demographic characteristics, work-related factors, and presence of learning disabilities or ADHD. We conducted a multivariate logistic regression analysis to assess occurrences of medically attended work injuries.

There was an 89% adjusted increase in work injury risk among workers with self-reported dyslexia (a type of learning disability) relative to workers reporting no learning disabilities, although this result did not meet traditional statistical significance criteria. Being out of school, either with or without a high school diploma, was associated with a significantly increased risk of work injury, even after control for a number of demographic and work-related variables.

Our findings underscore the notion that individual differences salient in the education system (e.g., learning disabilities, school dropout) need to be integrated into conceptual models of injury risk among young workers.