Estimating the influence of the socio-economic inequalities on counties' occupational injuries in Central China

This study explores the influence of socio-economic inequalities on the occupational safety situation in counties in Central China. Self-organizing feature maps (SOFMs) are applied to cluster the occupational safety situation in 346 counties in Central China. The results show that some socio-economic factors, such as the secondary industry added value, scalable industrial output value, infrastructure investment, and gross domestic product, and social factors, such as medical beds, fiscal expenditure, deposits from residents, and employed persons, had significant effects on the occupational safety situation in counties. An S-shaped relationship was also found between the increase of socio-economic development level and the death toll among clusters. Socio-economic inequalities could influence occupational safety on the county level and the significant growth in social level can improve occupational safety situation. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.