Construction workers can work smarter, not harder to prevent sprains and strains.

Construction has always been hard work, and with today’s push to get jobs completed fasterand more efficiently, workers are pushing their bodies to and past their limits.

However, stiff muscles this week could be the harbinger of years of pain and even disability years down the road. Scott Schneider, director of Occupational Safety and Health for the Laborers’ Health and Safety Fund of North America (LHSFNA),has spent most of his professional career understanding what makes construction workers hurt from their work and has identified ways to control it.

In his research, he’s found some interesting ways to approach the hard work in construction and make it easier. Studies show that when construction workers can do jobs in amore body-friendly way, productivity increases and injuries decrease.

One study revealed that 28 percent of all injury claims in road construction were ergonomic-related. “The insurance company and its customers can easily point to the direct costs of those injuries and how much could potentially be saved by preventing those injuries, ”Schneider says.

Schneider recommends using continuous improvement principles that construction workers can work smarter, not harder to prevent sprains and strains to identify workplace problems, evaluate their extent/severity, establish ways to control them, and then review and improve those methods, based on measured results.

Recognition

“The first step is to recognize the musculoskeletal injuries workers are experiencing and relating them to the tasks they perform. This can be hampered by poor recordkeeping and misreporting or under-reporting by workers,” he says.

The transient and ever-changing nature of construction work can make it difficult to identify root causes for some repetitive motion injuries.

“For example, back injuries have fewer clear-cut diagnostic criteria and claims are therefore susceptible to more skepticism and challenge by employers,” he says. “It’s difficult to attribute a specific cause to chronic injuries because the injuries have occurred over a long period of time, but we can see the patterns of injury based on the work tasks they performed.

Evaluation

Evaluation involves measuring the extent of the exposure and assessing the risk of injury. This maybe the hardest area for ergonomics, ”Schneider says.

Many protocols developed for the industrial world can be adapted to construction work, but Schneider also recommends using simpler and faster methods of evaluating risks, such as various checklists, that are readily available through an Internet search.

“They’re less precise, but they are useful for screening and less expensive and time consuming, especially for small employers,” he says.

Control

Once causes of repetitive motion injuries are identified, a variety of control methods can be used to help prevent them, says Schneider. “Injuries can be controlled with substitution, engineering and/or administrative controls, work practices and possibly personal protective equipment. ”Substitution controls replace one tool or supply with another. For example, Swedish workers suffered fewer injuries when they used 3' wide sheets of drywall that were lighter and easier to handle than 4' wide sheets. However, the substitution required more studding on a different spacing to accommodate the 3' wide panels,” he says.

Engineering controls include using carts, dollies or other material handling tools to move materials. It can also involve modifying the material. “In Germany, new block designs added handholds that make the blocks easier to hold and carry. Engineering controls and substitution are closely related and, depending on how you consider them, they can often fall into either type of control, ”Schneider says.

Administrative and work practice controls establish the “rules” of how a job is completed. Administrative controls may outline rest breaks or job enlargement. Work practices may be better handling techniques or requiring the use of specific tools that ease the work. “Involve the people doing the job to find the best and easiest way to do the job. A focus group of workers can offer valuable insight into how to do the job better,” he says.

Personal protective equipment (PPE) may help workers protect their bodies from long-term injury. “Back belts are often cited as a piece of PPE that helps prevent injuries, but research doesn’t back that up.” he says.

In establishing controls, it’s important to measure their effect. “Evaluating efficacy is important, and the best method is to use comparisons of results before and after implementing the control. Records on repetitive motion injuries are often sketchy and can be misleading,” he says.

A holistic approach

Solving repetitive motion injuries through ergonomic methods takes a holistic approach. “The discipline "Quality of work is closely linked with
quality of work life,” he says.

The discipline deals with the relationship between workers and their work,” he says. “The goal is to produce a workplace that is less prone to errors or where errors are easily corrected. I also believe that good work ergonomics makes workers comfortable and their jobs interesting and fulfilling, which can help reduce the negative health aspects of the job. Quality of work is closely linked with quality of work life,” he says.
Reducing repetitive motion injuries on jobsites isn’t just a one-time thing. Successful programs focus on continually improving the process,
which takes iterative approaches. “Try one approach, see how well it works and, if necessary, try other approaches that might work better.
One solution may not work best in all situations. This requires constant evaluation and then adjustments to see if improvements can be made,”
he says.
This is easiest when workers play a central role in the discovery and solution process. “Workers have inherent knowledge about their work and the skill needed to do the job that those helping to solve repetitive motion injuries will never fully understand. A worker’s insight is extremely valuable, and if they are part of the process, they will be more willing to adopt proposed solutions,” he concludes.

Simple solutions to painful work

Scott Schneider reports that several solutions exist to make hard work easier. Several ideas have been compiled by various agencies and organizations. He suggests checking out these links:

Simple solutions: ergonomics for construction workers

Laborers’ Health and Safety Fund of America’s ergonomics page

Laborers’ Health and Safety Fund of America’s ergonomic resources page