Manufacturing – Work, Stress, and Health

Using workers’ compensation systems to improve workplace safety and health

November 13, 2021November 12, 2021

The mission of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Center for Workers’ Compensation Studies (CWCS) is to maximize the use of workers’ compensation (WC) claims data and systems to improve workplace safety and health through partnerships. This poster presentation will describe recent and ongoing CWCS surveillance and research studies to achieve several key goals (see https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/workercomp/cwcs/publications.html).

NIOSH Chronic Disease Prevention Program: Expanding Partnerships to Prevent Occupational Disease

November 13, 2021November 12, 2021

This presentation provides information on the mission and function of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health?s (NIOSH?s) Cancer, Reproductive, Cardiovascular and Other Chronic Disease Prevention Program (CRC). The poster will describe current research priorities related to reducing and preventing occupational chronic diseases including cancer, cardiovascular disease, renal diseases, and neurological diseases as well as adverse reproductive outcomes. Collaboration with researchers, labor unions, professional and trade associations, and others is critical to the CRC and this poster will help to promote partnerships external to NIOSH.

NIOSH Center for Maritime Safety and Health Studies

November 13, 2021November 12, 2021

Industries and occupations that are the focus of the Center for Maritime Safety and Health Studies specialty program include shipyards, marine terminals, marine transportation, commercial fishing, aquaculture, seafood processing and commercial diving. Maritime workers are engaged in highly varied and diverse work settings and are exposed to a complex mixture of health hazards. Stress and its adverse short-term and long-term safety and health consequences are known to occur in many maritime industries and occupations, but it is not well recognized or characterized, nor adequately researched or addressed. The objective of this presentation is to highlight occupations and industries within the Maritime Specialty program where exposure to fatigue and stress are of concern.

Robotics Safety and Health Research at the NIOSH Center for Occupational Robotics Research

November 12, 2021November 12, 2021

Extensive research has been conducted by NIOSH and others on the safety of robots since they were first introduced to workplaces more than 40 years ago. However, this research focused on traditional robots that were isolated from human workers using guards, cages, or other controls. As robots have become more advanced, interactions with humans have become more common, and new ways of assessing and controlling the hazards associated with a robotic workplace are needed. The Center for Occupational Robotics Research (CORR) was established in 2017 as a virtual center within the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to work in partnership with other federal agencies, academic researchers, employers, and others to conduct research and disseminate guidance on the safety and health concerns of working around robots.

Wearable sensors: benefits and challenges for safety, stress, and health in the workplace

November 12, 2021November 12, 2021

Emanuele Cauda, PhD, NIOSH; John Snawder, PhD, NIOSH; Pramod Kulkarni, PhD, NIOSH Wearable sensor technologies (wearables) are a topic of great interest for the NIOSH Center for Direct Reading and Sensor Technologies (CDRST). The CDRST is one of the NIOSH National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA)Core and Specialty Programs. Wearables are used in several applications …

The price of pain: Pain as an explanatory mechanism for the relationship between physical job demands and intentions to turnover

November 13, 2021November 12, 2021

Our presentation conceptualizes pain as an explanatory mechanism for the relationship between physical job demands and intentions to turnover (ITO), using the fear-avoidance (FA) model as the theoretical framework. Data from a multi-wave study on work capacity and aging, which included 360 participants recruited from five manufacturing organizations in the northeastern U.S., were analyzed using the SPSS PROCESS macro (model 4) to estimate direct and indirect effects, while controlling for various covariates. Our results indicated that high physical job demands were significantly related to increased perceptions of pain; high perceptions of pain and high physical job demands were significantly related to higher ITO; and the relationship between physical job demands and ITO was partially mediated by perceptions of pain. Collectively, these results indicate that ITO is a potential outcome of physical job demands, and that pain may partially explain this relationship. As such, in order to reduce instances of ITO, research as well as organizations that require employees to engage in physically demanding work should focus on uncovering interventions that may reduce an employee?s associated experience of pain.

Safety Promotion in Turbulent Times: Development and Validation of a COVID-19 Safety Climate Scale

November 12, 2021November 12, 2021

The present study developed and validated a COVID-19 safety climate scale. This study extends the SC literature by incorporating urgent pandemic-related policies, procedures, and practices for the adequate control of COVID-19 and promotion of workplace health and well-being during the pandemic. The newly developed and validated COVID-19 SC scale consists of two levels: Organization-level COVID-19 SC (18 items) refers to the employees? perceptions of the strategies and efforts upstream in an organization; and Group-level COVID-19 SC (11 items) refers to the employees? perceptions of the intermediate support and care from supervisors.

The comparison of psychological and physical well-being using interdisciplinary methods of assessment

November 13, 2021November 12, 2021

Two methods of assessing well-being were compared. Psychological well-being was appraised by standardised questionnaires and physical well-being was established by a MAS recording mobility, loads of joints during activity of machining and assembling workers. The analysis of raw data showed some difficulties in comparing it and the results were not fully convergent. In the presented study psychological well-being was on the average level while physical well-being was high. It makes the general well-being hard to establish. However practical implications from this study are comprehensive, and may be useful in many areas in the organisation including HR, H&S and ergonomics.

A Spanish Translation of Zohar and Luria’s Safety Climate Scale and a Test of Measurement Equivalence

November 13, 2021November 12, 2021

The purpose of this study is to provide a Spanish-language version of Zohar and Luria?s (Zohar & Luria, 2005) commonly-used safety climate scale using a rigorous translation-back translation process. Given the widespread use of the Spanish language across the globe and that as of 2020, 17.6% percent of the United States working population is Hispanic (BLS, 2021), there is a need for valid safety climate scales written in Spanish. This study demonstrates that a test of measurement equivalency can provide confidence of the translation process from one language to another. There is significant evidence supporting the reliability and validity of this safety climate scale.