scholarly journals Muscle Health: The Gateway to Population Health Management

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Gilliam ◽  
Paul Terpeluk
Keyword(s):  
Muscular Strength ◽  
Health Management ◽  
Cleveland Clinic ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Workers Compensation ◽  
Skeletal Health ◽  
Strength Assessment ◽  
Safety Research ◽  
Compensation Claims ◽  
New Hire

The muscle on your frame is a prime indicator of health and longevity. Dr. Paul Terpeluk with the Cleveland Clinic has stated that muscular strength is the new vital sign of workplace health and safety. Research studies focusing on Type II diabetes, cardiovascular disease, musculo-skeletal injuries, certain cancers and the delay of dementia have shown a strong correlation between disease prevention and muscular strength. IPCS’ database of over 500,000 strength tests have shown a workers’ absolute strength today is at least 14% weaker than the worker 15 years ago and weighs about 8 pounds more. Over the last 10 years, there has been a significant shift by 52% with an increase in the number of workers with a BMI of 35 or greater. The Cleveland Clinic implemented a new hire muscular strength assessment to place new hire applicants into jobs that match their physical capability in 2011. The outcomes show a statistically significant reduction in number of employee health, pharmacy and workers’ compensation claims and costs with overall savings near $25 million. Musculo-skeletal health of the worker can be improved. When a worker maintains good muscular strength, the worker is more productive, has fewer medical claims and workers’ compensation claims.

The Costs of Work-Related Musculoskeletal Disorders in Automotive Manufacturing

2000 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 403-426 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Punnett
Keyword(s):  
Musculoskeletal Disorders ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Labor Turnover ◽  
Recent Experience ◽  
Workers Compensation ◽  
Manufacturing Companies ◽  
Automotive Manufacturing ◽  
Work Related ◽  
Work Related Musculoskeletal Disorders ◽  
Compensation Claims

Inadequate application of ergonomic principles to the design of workplaces and individual jobs has adverse consequences for worker health and safety, especially in terms of strains, sprains, and other musculoskeletal disorders. In addition to the human pain and suffering, other losses are externalized to workers, with adverse financial and psychosocial impacts. There are also costs to employers through workers' compensation claims, scrap, and decreased production quality, medical insurance premiums, labor turnover, and adverse impacts on labor relations, although many of these are not linked by traditional accounting methods to ergonomic problems per se. Data collected in five plants of two major U.S. automotive manufacturing companies in the last decade have been used to estimate some of the costs associated with work-related musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), only some of which resulted in workers' compensation claims. In one plant in 1984–85, the payroll cost of all back and shoulder disorders was at least $320 per year per worker, not including workers' compensation premiums or claims paid. A large proportion of these costs were accrued by “unreported” cases, that is, cases that either had never been reported to the plant clinic or had been reported in the past and were considered administratively to have recovered. In the other four plants, annual costs associated with in-plant medical visits for MSDs in 1989–93 were almost as high as those resulting from compensation claims. At least one-half of these disorders were estimated to be attributable to physical ergonomic exposures in the workplace and thus preventable. These data are consistent with estimates by others that the real costs to employers are at least two to three times the amount paid in workers' compensation cases, and that at least 50 percent of all work-related musculoskeletal disorders among the working population could be prevented by appropriate ergonomic job design. Furthermore, recent experience with ergonomics programs in various manufacturing and service settings shows that they are cost-effective in reducing morbidity, work absenteeism, and workers' compensation claims; payback periods for workplace modifications can be as short as a few months. Further investigations should explore the reasons that monetary costs and other impacts on profitability do not always motivate employers to improve working conditions.

Workload Issues among Commercial Cleaning Workers (Discussion Panel)

2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 947-949
Author(s):  
Stephen Bao ◽  
Ben Walker ◽  
Debra Milek ◽  
Wonil Lee ◽  
Andrew Ryan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Musculoskeletal Disorder ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Current Knowledge ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Work Conditions ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Workers Compensation ◽  
Compensation Claims ◽  
The University ◽  
Discussion Panel

Cleaning is a generic and essential job in various sectors and workplaces, commonly under the categories of janitorial or custodial services. Cleaning activities in organizations are often not the main business outputs of those organizations that they serve. Such jobs are performed either by an organization’s own employees, or more often, contracted out to external service providers. Therefore even organizations may have well-established occupational health and safety programs, the issues of cleaning workers’ work conditions are often overlooked (Seixas et al. 2013), thus resulting in high workers’ compensation claims (Lynch 2011, Smith and Anderson 2017). In the University of California system alone, there were 761 workers’ compensation claims among the custodial workers in 2010, with an actuarial estimated ultimate direct cost of $7.1 million (Lynch 2011). It has been suggested that workload among commercial cleaning workers has been increasing over the years, which may be responsible for the increased workers’ compensation claims among cleaning workers (Simcox et al. 2013, Teran and vanDommelen-Gonzalez 2017). It seems that it is necessary to understand the workload situation among commercial janitors so that proper protection ideas and mechanisms can be developed and implemented. However, current knowledge about cleaning workers’ workload is still very limited. Standard worktimes, which are normally based on time studies, are often used to develop “acceptable” janitorial workloads in the cleaning industry (Walker 2018). However, ergonomics researchers have been observing high musculoskeletal disorder risks among janitorial workers (Messing et al. 1998, Norman et al. 2003, Schwartz et al. 2019). Since the risk factors are multifaceted, this Discussion Panel consisting of a number of content experts including researchers, government health and safety specialists, and industry practitioners aim to help janitorial/custodial work conditions. We hope we will be able to develop a framework for future research on establishing healthy and safe workload for cleaning workers.

Medical and Legal Issues Raised by the Protz Decision Issued by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court

2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 12-13
Author(s):  
LuAnn Haley ◽  
Marjorie Eskay-Auerbach
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Workers Compensation ◽  
Sixth Edition ◽  
Complex Concept ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Compensation Claims ◽  
Recent Edition ◽  
Impairment Ratings ◽  
Definition Of

Abstract Pennsylvania adopted the impairment rating provisions described in the AMA Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment (AMA Guides) in 1996 as an exposure cap for employers seeking predictability and cost control in workers’ compensation claims. In 2017, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania handed down the Protz decision, which held that requiring physicians to apply the methodology set forth in the most recent edition of the AMA Guides reflected an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power to the American Medical Association. The decision eliminates the impairment-rating evaluation (IRE) mechanism under which claimants were assigned an impairment rating under the most recent edition of the AMA Guides. The AMA Guides periodically are revised to include the most recent scientific evidence regarding impairment ratings, and the AMA Guides, Sixth Edition, acknowledges that impairment is a complex concept that is not yet defined in a way that readily permits an evidence-based definition of assessment. The AMA Guides should not be considered standards frozen in time simply to withstand future scrutiny by the courts; instead, workers’ compensation acts could state that when a new edition of the AMA Guides is published, the legislature shall review and consider adopting the new edition. It appears unlikely that the Protz decision will be followed in other jurisdictions: Challenges to using the AMA Guides in assessing workers’ compensation claims have been attempted in three states, and all attempts failed.

Conducting Worksite Investigations

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce P. Bernard
Keyword(s):  
Occupational Safety ◽  
Health Management ◽  
Health Hazard ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Employee Health ◽  
Hazard Evaluation ◽  
Workplace Hazards ◽  
Health Concerns ◽  
Workplace Conditions ◽  
Safety And Health

This chapter focuses on conducting worksite investigations, including walkthrough surveys, and provides occupational health and safety personnel, employees, and employers the opportunity to identify and assess current workplace conditions and employee health concerns and make recommendations on how to reduce or eliminate any identified workplace hazards. The methods described cover ways to implement corrective actions necessary for preventing future adverse incidents and to identify shortcomings in safety and health management programs. Various specific examples are provided. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Hazard Evaluation Program, which has experience with all types of workplace hazards, is described. Preparing for and conducting workplace investigations is described in detail.

scholarly journals Laboratory Safety, Biosecurity, and Responsible Animal Use

ILAR Journal ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica McCormick-Ell ◽  
Nancy Connell
Keyword(s):  
Health And Safety ◽  
Chemical Exposure ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Worker Safety ◽  
Environmental Health And Safety ◽  
Safety Research ◽  
Education Levels ◽  
Animal Safety ◽  
Animal Care

AbstractResearch with animals presents a wide array of hazards, some of which overlap those in the in vitro research laboratory. The challenge for environmental health and safety professionals when making their recommendations and performing the risk assessment is to balance worker safety with animal safety/welfare. The care and husbandry of animals require procedures and tasks that create aerosols and involve metabolized chemicals and a variety of physical hazards that must be assessed in addition to the research related risks, all while balancing the biosecurity of the facility and NIH animal care requirements. Detailed communication between health and safety, research, and animal care teams is essential to understand how to mitigate the risks that are present and if modifications need to be made as the experiments and processes progress and change over time. Additionally, the backgrounds and education levels of the persons involved in animal research and husbandry can be quite broad; the training programs created need to reflect this. Active learning and hands-on training are extremely beneficial for all staff involved in this field. Certain areas of research, such as infectious disease research in high- and maximum-containment (biosafety level 3 and 4) facilities, present challenges that are not seen in lower containment or chemical exposure experiments. This paper reviews potential hazards and mitigation strategies and discusses unique challenges for safety at all biosafety levels.

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