Latina hotel housekeepers have highest rates of injury among peers

LatinaLista — Cleaning house is hard work. Cleaning a hotel room is even harder work.

A study that will appear in the January issue of The American Journal of Industrial Medicine found that while studying workers at 50 hotels in the U.S., Latinas had an injury rate two-thirds higher than their white female peers.

The study, Occupational Injury Disparities in the U.S. Hotel Industry, found that Hispanic housekeepers had the highest injury rate — 10.6 percent a year — compared with 6.3 percent for white housekeepers, 5.5 for black housekeepers and 7.3 percent for Asian housekeepers.

It makes sense that Asian housekeepers would have the second highest injury rate since a common reason proposed for the high injury rates among Latinas is because today’s hotel mattresses are heavier and most Latinas are smaller in stature.

Also, hotel housekeepers must quickly clean rooms which also could lead to more injuries on the job.

Though the details of the report aren’t fully available yet, one interesting piece of information from the study is being revealed: Of the 50 hotels included in the study, the Hyatt chain had the highest injury rate for housekeepers at 10.4 percent. The lowest injury rate was found at the Hilton chain with 5.47 percent.

Though half the injury rate of the Hyatt workers, it’s still too high a number especially since the report found that housekeepers suffer with the highest rates of acute trauma and musculoskeletal disorders.

We can only hope that these hotels provide good health coverage for their workers.