Preventing injury, illness and disability at work

Abstract

This discussion paper is intended to start a dialogue about prevention among those who are interested in making workplaces safer and healthier. The following four key themes are presented to build a framework for further discussion and activity: theme 1 -with multiple causes for workplace injury, illness, and disability, preventing these problems requires multiple solutions, operating in synergy; theme 2 -efforts to reduce workplace injury, illness, and disability must build on both primary and secondary prevention approaches, merging these to create a more effective strategy; theme 3 -before which strategies work and which do not can be agreed upon, a shared understanding is needed of how the effectiveness of occupational health interventions should be evaluated; and theme 4 -building relationships between those who do research and those who use research knowledge is important if relevant research is to be produced that is readily taken up and applied to improve occupational health and safety.

Facilitating job retention for chronically ill employees: perspectives of line managers and human resource managers

“…Frank and Cullen have characterized active absence or return-to-work management as secondary prevention, which occurs after illness or disability has occurred and aims at reducing long-term disability [22]. Disability research suggests, however, that the retention of chronically ill workers requires a more pro-active approach, combining secondary prevention with primary prevention [23-27].…”

“…According to Frank and Cullen, "primary prevention aims at reducing the risk of injury or illness before the absence occurs (while the person is still healthy). This aim is generally accomplished by modifying factors known to increase the risk of work disability by directly controlling a specific hazard or set of hazards, for example by increasing a worker's skills or modifying the work environment" [22]. …”

Non-modifiable worker and workplace risk factors contributing to workplace absence: A stakeholder-centred synthesis of systematic reviews

“…However, even in cases when adequate research exists, full application of such knowledge may be limited. That is, in our work with stakeholders, a common difficulty voiced by these partners was their own lack of knowledge about how to identify high quality research, and subsequently, how to translate available best-evidence research into useful information intended to inform policy, training and practice [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. Despite their motivation to learn from current research, stakeholders often found the literature challenging to translate into practical solutions that could be meaningfully applied within the workplace.…”

Modelo lógico de um programa de retorno ao trabalho: instrumento orientador para prevenir a incapacidade

“…Nesse caso, a promoção do retorno ao trabalho sustentável depende da integração de ações de assistência e vigilância da saúde dos trabalhadores. Frank 26 enfatiza essas ações de prevenção da incapacidade em vários níveis e propõe estratégias diversificadas, similares à proposta do modelo lógico do PRT. Outros estudos comprovam a importância da coordenação e sensibilização entre os atores sociais durante todo o processo de RT 8,12 .…”