The Injuries You’re Targeting in Your Workplaces
Some jurisdictions, such as Ontario and Alberta, have inspection blitzes in which safety officers target specific kinds of safety requirements, violations or injuries. Workplaces may do something similar—that is, focus their prevention efforts on certain kinds of injuries or illnesses.
We recently asked which types of injuries/illnesses you’re actively targeting in your workplace. The results:
- Musculoskeletal injuries (MSIs) (40%)
- Back injuries (19%)
- Arm/hand injuries (17%)
- Eye injuries (10%)
- Foot/leg injuries (4%)
- Heat stress (2%)
- Chemical irritation/burns (2%).
No one is apparently targeting hearing loss, respiratory illnesses or head injuries. And 6% said they weren’t targeting any injuries or illnesses at all.
For the many workplaces focused on preventing MSIs, the Ergonomics Compliance Centre has information and tools that can help support your efforts. For example, it’ll help you:
- Understand employers’ legal obligations as to MSIs
- Identify and assess ergonomics-related hazards and implement appropriate measures to address those hazards
- Cut through senior management’s resistance to ergonomics initiatives and get money for ergonomics improvements.
Workplaces targeting back, arm/hand and foot/leg injuries may also find the Ergonomics Compliance Centre useful as it contains forms for investigating such injuries.
In addition, the Heat Stress Compliance Centre can help those of you focusing on heat stress and other heat-related illnesses.