Ergonomics in Agriculture: Workplace Priority Setting in the Nursery Industry

Details

• Personal Author:
  Faucett J ; Janowitz I ; Kabashima JN ; Meyers JM ; Miles JA ; Tejeda DG
• Description:
  In an effort to develop interventions to address the excessive incidence of musculoskeletal disorders in agricultural industries a workplace job task screening was conducted examining risk factors and musculoskeletal disorders in the nursery industry. Jobs and tasks at three nurseries were evaluated using three methods. Managers and supervisors were surveyed about jobs or tasks associated with the highest level of risk for musculoskeletal disorders, a workplace screening was conducted examining risk factors for particular jobs, and injury and illness records were examined. A list of candidate tasks for intervention planning was compiled following triangulation across the three data collection methods. These tasks were plant cutting (propagation), handling cans for transport to field (canning), transporting plants from trailer to planting bed (field work), field pruning (field work), spacing (field work), weeding (field work), plant labeling (shipping), and truck loading/unloading (shipping). The most common risk factors for the development of work related musculoskeletal problems in each of these tasks were described. Four jobs/tasks were selected by an engineering group as presenting likely targets of opportunity for ergonomic intervention. Two of these involved handling cans and had risk factors of stooping, lifting, and pinch grip, and two involved hand clipping activities which had risk factors of repetition. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Agriculture Ergonomics Musculoskeletal Diseases Musculoskeletal System Occupational Health Risk Assessment Risk Factors Safety
• Keywords:
  Agricultural-industry Agricultural-workers Musculoskeletal-system-disorders NIOSH-Cooperative-Agreement NIOSH-Publication Posture Repetitive-work Risk-factors Task-performance Work-analysis
• ISSN:
  0002-8894
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Cooperative Agreement
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  California ; OSHA Region 9
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  121-126
• Volume:
  58
• Issue:
  2
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:00235419
• Citation:
  Am Ind Hyg Assoc J 1997 Feb; 58(2):121-126
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  1997
• Performing Organization:
  University of California - Davis
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Start Date:
  19940930
• Source Full Name:
  American Industrial Hygiene Association Journal
• End Date:
  19980929
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:c2c4a93965c8f2da074db45be881f1eab0fbfbd98910bc95b5cfed961ac0ae588160e98802d0f9073d5348c4d2036bb168aff1f64a1086452bc2c2994bb5d966
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/197778/cdc_197778_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 4.89 MB ]