A large body of research demonstrates that biomechanical and psychosocial hazards affect work-related musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) and stress-related mental health problems (MHPs). The APHIRM Toolkit was developed to facilitate more effective translation of this evidence into workplace risk management practices. APHIRM survey data from three occupations in the healthcare sector, was used to develop ‘riskiness’ profiles: (a) at occupational versus local workgroup levels, and (b) using hazard constructs versus individual hazard items.
Methods
A sample of Australian healthcare sector workers was drawn from the APHIRM toolkit database. Data was from 55 workgroups: food services (15 workgroups); medical and allied health (17 workgroups); and nursing (23 workgroups).
Results
MSD and MHP riskiness profiles were developed in terms of hazard construct levels, separately by occupation. MSP and Stress levels of Food Services workers were more strongly affected by hazard exposures than in the other two occupations Very wide variability between workgroups was evident in both MSP- and Stress-associated hazards at both hazard construct and hazard item levels.
Discussion and Conclusion
Effective workplace control of MSD and MHP risks requires that risk control actions target hazards that are the main sources of these risks. Results confirmed that achieving this requires workplace managers to:
• Analyse survey data at the level of individual items rather than constructs
• Aggregate risk assessment data and prioritise risk control actions to address the hazards most strongly associated with risk for each workgroup separately – that is, for groups of workers doing the same work in the same physical and psychosocial environment
• Consider using the same set of procedures to manage MSD and MHP risks together, because MSD risk of every workgroup was affected by both biomechanical and psychosocial hazards, and MHP risk was usually affected by one or more biomechanical hazards as well as psychosocial ones.