Assessing the influence of sleep disorders on the association between sex/gender and work injury in rural Canada

Project Summary

High injury rates in men may be attributed to a greater perceived hazard in the tasks they perform. Sex only partially explains this trend. Evolving social roles and expectations also influence hazard exposure. Gender, a contextual social concept, may help explain the inequality. Insufficient sleep and apnea impact men’s and women’s work performance differently. Existing research treats sleep apnea and deprivation as separate even though the former can lead to the latter. Further, sleep health studies are usually based on urban occupations. The interplay of social factors, biological conditions, and behavioral patterns during/before an accident influences injury risk. This project aims to leverage longitudinal CLSA data to explore how deprived sleep and apnea individually and collectively influence the sex/gender-injury relationship in rural settings. Identifying the relative contribution of these variables can inform better interventions and policies.