Understanding “under-reporting” in occupational health and safety

Under-reporting of occupational health problems can have significant consequences including under-estimation of the occupational injury and disease burden, sub-optimal prevention and treatment, reduced access for workers to compensation, and displacement of costs from the compensation system to the public health system. But to date we do not have sufficient understanding of why and how under-reporting occurs. This plenary discusses a project that took this issue on and set the stage for future research investigation by examining key concepts, stakeholders’ language and logic, new potential units of analysis and determinants, and the socio-politics of doing research in this area.