Discussion Panel Decedent Handling: Understanding the Challenges and Exploring Opportunities for Ergonomics Research

Details

• Personal Author:
  Fox RR ; Furuness I ; Lee T ; Lu M-L ; Maikala, Rammohan V. ; McGinty M ; Salmen-Navarro A ; Wiggermann N
• Description:
  The COVID-19 pandemic has taken many lives in the last two years. Handling high volumes of decedents within and beyond a hospital's environment has put healthcare- and deathcare-workers at an increased health risk throughout this pandemic. However, systematic research about manual handling of the dead either at the hospital, morgue, funeral home, or in situations of mass fatalities is still in infancy. This session aims to educate ergonomics and safety professionals on the importance of understanding the risk factors associated with handling the decedents, design issues of body bags, effects of PPE, routine versus mass fatality handling of the decedents, and participatory ergonomics. This session will also examine the feasibility of translating the past and current research on the handling of live patients to the handling of patients postmortem. Finally, psychosocial risks due to handling the deceased within the pandemic environment that might influence these workers' risk of musculoskeletal injuries will be deliberated. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Communicable Diseases Ergonomics Health Personnel Mortality Musculoskeletal Diseases Occupational Health Safety
• Keywords:
  COVID-19 Fatalities Health Care Workers MSD Musculoskeletal Disorders Patient Handling Psychosocial Factors
• ISSN:
  1071-1813
• Publisher:
  Human Factors and Ergonomics Society
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Proceedings
• Place as Subject:
  Illinois ; Indiana ; New York ; Ohio ; OSHA Region 2 ; OSHA Region 5
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  DFSE - Division of Field Studies and Engineering
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Volume:
  66
• Issue:
  1
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20068266
• Citation:
  Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 66th Annual Meeting, October 10-14, 2022, Atlanta, Georgia. Santa Monica, CA: Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 2022 Sep; 66(1):1637-1641
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2022
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Source Full Name:
  Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 66th Annual Meeting, October 10-14, 2022, Atlanta, Georgia
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:ffb5fd43157ec8c58c07e2e4dc34cc05d037335f0052a48708d496b2944da8ec0ff208501bf1b4240a2e920c0d79a377511e3477f69f192ec9ad30eb49a3e5e1
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/230449/cdc_230449_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.10 MB ]