Work-related diseases and injuries reported to workers compensation fund in Tanzania from 2016 to 2019

Abstract

ABSTRACT Background: About 2.78 million people are killed by their work every year, which is about 5% of the total global deaths. To reduce this burden effectively the extent of the problem and its contributing factors need to be known. The Tanzania Workers Compensation Fund (WCF) was established in 2015 covering both public and private sectors.WCF receives notifications of work-related diseases (WRD), work-related injuries (WRI), and work-related fatalities (WRF) from all sectors for compensation purposes. The WCF notification system is timely and accurate in data recording, it gives an opportunity to estimate workers’ health status in the country, protect the most at risk and monitor future progress of occupational health. Objective: The aim of this study was to determine the trends and factors associated with work-related diseases and injuries reported to WCF between 2016 and 2019. Methodology: This was a descriptive cross sectional study based on data requested from workers compensation registry from 2016 to 2019.The study populations were workers registered to WCF. A total 4847 reported cases of diseases and injuries were analyzed (both descriptive and regression analysis) by using stata version 12. Results: This study found that most of incidences reported to WCF in the 4years were injuries among which (89%) were non-fatal, (5%) fatal injuries and the remaining (6%) were diseases. Majority both WRD and WRI reported occurred among men (83%) who were married (68%) with a median age of 34 years. Workers in mining sector had sector had 62 fold increased odds of acquiring WRD (AOR=62; 95% CI: 25-156), and health workers were shown to have 4.3 fold increased odds of development of WRD (AOR=4.3; 95% CI: 1.9-9.9). It was also found that majority of injuries occurred at work places but motor traffic accidents accounted for (73%) of all fatal injuries. Transport and storage sector was the leading in fatal reports with 6.4 fold increased odds of encountering fatal injuries compared to workers in manufacturing sector 6.4 (AOR=6.4; 95% CI: 2.5-17) and engineers had a 5 fold increased odds of encountering fatal injuries at their work places compared to mechanics (AOR=5; 95% CI: 0.7-36.5). vi Conclusion and recommendation: This study has demonstrated increasing trends in work-related diseases and injuries reported to the Tanzanian Workers Compensation Fund. Workers age, sex, sector of employment and occupation are the most important factors associated with the occurrence of these incidences. More studies need to be done to explore other predisposing factors.