Similarities between work related musculoskeletal disorders and slips, trips and falls

Abstract

Most occupational risks manifest themselves through movements performed at work, for example musculoskeletal disorders, slips, trips and falls. Research focusing on such risks often differentiates diseases from accidents. All these risks prove to be diffuse, widespread, emergent and devoid of an external harmful hazard, when analysed through their common vector, i.e. through the movements manifesting them. These characteristics have a strong impact on risk perception and on approaches necessary to ensure sustainable prevention. A participative search for local solutions to preventing these risks, integrating shared risk representation and several analysis levels, would seem helpful. A balance between defended and resilience-based conceptions of health and safety should be established. Research should also be extended to enhance in-depth understanding of controls impacting worker movements when performing a task, while safeguarding health and safety.

Abstract

Practitioner Summary: Progress in the field of musculoskeletal disorders would contribute to preventing occupational accidents with movement disturbances. This paper highlights the significance of both establishing a balance between health and safety-defended conception and system resilience enhancement, and better understanding the individual controls involved in performing a task, while safeguarding health and safety.

Keywords:

• occupational injuries
• slips trips and falls
• musculoskeletal disorders
• movement
• sustainable prevention

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

^1. Email: [email protected]

^2. Email: [email protected]

^3. Email: [email protected]

^4. There is no agreed definition of risk (Aven and Renn 2009). In this paper, the risk is the probability of an adverse outcome (Graham and Wiener 1995); a risk will be considered to exist in an occupational situation, if the probability of the associated adverse outcome is not zero, injury occurrence being the risk manifestation.

^5. Jørgensen (2011) in a paper related to ‘simple accidents’ states that they ‘… happen in everyday situations, which people believe they are fully capable of controlling and where they therefore cannot really see any serious risk’.

^6. Some accidentology studies concern falls, whether they occur at work, at home, during leisure activities or sport (Haslam and Stubbs 2006).

^7. Arnaudo et al. (2006) have defined heavy postural or articular stresses based on time thresholds, beyond which exposure to a type of stress (prolonged kneeling or head and neck in fixed position for example) can be considered a significant risk factor for the employee's health.

^8. Variations, causes, latent conditions, risk factors or determinants are all terms used in the literature dealing with occupational accidents (Kouabenan 1999) or occupational pathologies to distinguish the various facts that take place during the genesis of such injuries. In this paper, the term ‘factor’ or the expression ‘risk factor’ is used to evoke a fact, which increases the probability of injury occurrence, irrespective of the level at which this fact acts in the genesis of the injury or its nature.

^9. «dispositions à agir» translated from French in the original paper.

^10. Intrinsic ability of a system to adjust its functioning prior to, during, or following changes and disturbances, so that it can sustain required operations under both expected and unexpected conditions (Hollnagel 2010).

^11. Unlike the increase of the system resilience, implementation of preventive barriers refers to a defensive conception of health and safety (Hollnagel 2008).