Abstract

We conducted a narrative literature review of U.S. casino occupational health and safety research based on the following inclusion criteria: 1) focused on workers, 2) provided information pertaining to exposures present in the occupational environment (e.g., hazards, stressors, etc.), and 3) pertained to casino, gaming, or gambling workers. Following a multi-step process, a total of 11 articles were identified that related to the occupational health and safety of U.S. casino workers. These articles primarily focused on environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) exposures (n = 7 articles), with the remaining articles related to casino worker risk behaviors (i.e., problem gambling and drinking) (n = 2), and psychosocial stressors (n = 2). Our results demonstrate that the overwhelming consensus in the literature is that ETS leads to high respirable particulate matter (PM2.5), tobacco toxin levels and exposures among gaming employees. Our results also suggest that harassment, low autonomy at work, and unsafe work conditions may be of concern, especially for female workers. We identified major gaps in the casino worker occupational safety literature including a lack of studies that evaluated noise exposure, injury data, ergonomics, psychosocial hazards, or long term respiratory health outcomes related to ETS exposure. Future research regarding the occupational safety and health of U.S. casino workers should address these gaps in the literature.

Document Type

Review

Publication Date

10-10-2018

Notes/Citation Information

Published in AIMS Public Health, v. 5, issue 4, p. 378-393.

© 2018 the Author(s), licensee AIMS Press.

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0).

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.3934/publichealth.2018.4.378

Funding Information

This research was supported by a grant from the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene: [#M00B4400404; PI: JK Tracy].

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