Improving Occupational Safety and Health among Mexican Immigrant Workers: A Binational Collaboration

Abstract

Latino immigrants are 50% more likely than all workers in the United States to experience a fatal injury at work. Occupational safety and health (OSH) organizations often find that the approaches and networks they successfully use to promote OSH among U.S.-born workers are ineffective at reaching Latino immigrants. This article describes the collaboration between the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores) to promote OSH among Mexican immigrant workers. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs operates 50 consulates throughout the U.S. that provide four million discrete service contacts with Mexican citizens annually. The focus of this ongoing collaboration is to develop the internal capacity of Mexican institutions to promote OSH among Mexican immigrants while simultaneously developing NIOSH's internal capacity to create effective and sustainable initiatives to better document and reduce occupational health disparities for Mexican immigrants in the U.S.