Occupational musculoskeletal and mental health: Significance of rationalization and opportunities to create sustainable production systems – A systematic review

Explicit and implicit theories of change when designing and implementing preventive ergonomics interventions – a systematic literature review

“…The different stakeholder roles in initiating, planning, implementing, and evaluating change is an important aspect of ergonomics interventions and likely to have a major influence on the feasibility, acceptance, and sustainability of the intervention (6,28,100). While this is also a core aspect in most theories of change, too little information was available in the reviewed studies to allow for an analysis, and so we could not identify key stakeholders.…”

“…The dominance may reflect a bias of both intervention ideas and selection of research issues among ergonomists towards a focus on the individual rather than the organization. Natural interventions, initiated and driven by companies, may to a much larger extent be directed towards issues in production and management (28). The reviewed articles give the impression that intervention strategies based on participation have attained a dominant position in ergonomics.…”

“…Several excellent reviews and numerous studies have been devoted to identifying work-related MSD risk factors (14)(15)(16)(17)(18), how to assess exposure to these risk factors (19)(20)(21)(22)(23), physiological mechanisms explaining MSD (24,25), effective levels of action (5,26,27), ergonomics effects of changes caused by rationalizations (28), and outcomes of interest to ergonomics interventions such as health (29,30) and profitability (31)(32)(33). While these issues are central to the understanding of how to design an effective intervention, they do not address the process of change per se.…”

Mechanical exposure among general practice dentists in Sweden and possible implications of rationalisation

“…A high prevalence of musculoskeletal complaints is especially found in the shoulder/neck and the back (Alexopoulos et al 2004, Dong et al 2007, Hayes et al 2009). Many studies within the health care sector indicate that physical and mental health problems are partly related to the comprehensive rationalisation when implementing new public management (NPM) and human resource management (HRM) (Winkel and Westgaard 1996, Bejerot et al 1999, Westgaard and Winkel 2011.…”

Long-term impact of role stress and cognitive rumination upon morning and evening saliva cortisol secretion

“…This also led to sudden changes in working practices such as flexible working, reduced working hours, outsourcing and the use of contractors to provide services no longer provided 'in house'. A recent systematic scientific literature review concluded that downsizing is associated with negative health and risk factors for "survivors" (Westgaard & Winkel, 2010). The review also shows that it is important to manage organizational downsizing carefully, as exposure to repeated downsizing further increases risk and that worse health is experienced among workers most affected by the downsizing process.…”