Biomedical subjects

Philip J W Carrivick

Publications and source records attributed to Philip J W Carrivick.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2005

Evaluating the effectiveness of a participatory ergonomics approach in reducing the risk and severity of injuries from manual handling.

Manual handling is the greatest contributor to non-fatal injury and disease in the workplace, commonly accounting for one-third of national injury counts. Interventional strategies that have focused on selecting or modifying the worker have been ineffective in reducing injury risk. In recent times, participatory ergonomics has been widely adopted as a process to reduce the risk of injury from manual handling but it is not well validated as an intervention. This study evaluated the effectiveness of a participatory ergonomics risk assessment approach in reducing the rate and severity of injuries from manual and non-manual handling sustained by a cohort of 137 cleaners within a hospital setting. The date of injury and the workers' compensation claim cost and hours lost from work were obtained for each injury incurred during the 4-year pre-intervention and 3-year intervention period. The age, gender and hours worked were ascertained for every cleaner whether injured or not. Using generalized linear mixed modelling analysis, reductions of rate of injury by two-thirds, workers' compensation claim costs by 62% and hours lost by 35% for manual handling injuries were found to be associated with the intervention period. Although the cleaners experienced a significant intervention period reduction in non-manual handling injury rate, the corresponding changes in severity of injury were not significant. The success of the intervention supports the adoption of a participatory ergonomics approach in reducing the rate and consequence of injuries in the workplace.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

Modelling bivariate count series with excess zeros.

Bivariate time series of counts with excess zeros relative to the Poisson process are common in many bioscience applications. Failure to account for the extra zeros in the analysis may result in biased parameter estimates and misleading inferences. A class of bivariate zero-inflated Poisson autoregression models is presented to accommodate the zero-inflation and the inherent serial dependency between successive observations. An autoregressive correlation structure is assumed in the random component of the compound regression model. Parameter estimation is achieved via an EM algorithm, by maximizing an appropriate log-likelihood function to obtain residual maximum likelihood estimates. The proposed method is applied to analyze a bivariate series from an occupational health study, in which the zero-inflated injury count events are classified as either musculoskeletal or non-musculoskeletal in nature. The approach enables the evaluation of the effectiveness of a participatory ergonomics intervention at the population level, in terms of reducing the overall incidence of lost-time injury and a simultaneous decline in the two mean injury rates.

Accidents, Occupational↗

PubMed2004

Modeling zero-inflated count series with application to occupational health.

A zero-inflated Poisson mixed autoregression model is presented for analyzing time series of count events with excess zeros. The model is motivated by the evaluation of a participatory ergonomics intervention intended to reduce manual handling workplace injuries over a specified time period. Random effects are introduced into the linear predictor of the model to account for serial correlation between successive observations. Parameter estimation is achieved by maximizing an appropriate log-likelihood function to obtain approximate residual maximum likelihood estimates. The method enables the evaluation of occupational intervention using population level aggregated count data series containing extra zeros.

Occupational Health↗

PubMed2003

A bivariate zero-inflated Poisson regression model to analyze occupational injuries.

The aim of many occupational safety interventions is to reduce the incidence of injury. However, when measuring intervention effectiveness within a period, population-based accident count data typically contain a large proportion of zero observations (no injury). This situation is compounded where injuries are categorized in a binary manner according to an outcome of interest. The distribution thus comprises a point mass at zero mixed with a non-degenerate parametric component, such as the bivariate Poisson. In this paper, a bivariate zero-inflated Poisson (BZIP) regression model is proposed to evaluate a participatory ergonomics team intervention conducted within the cleaning services department of a public teaching hospital. The findings highlight that the BZIP distribution provided a satisfactory fit to the data, and that the intervention was associated with a significant reduction in overall injury incidence and the mean number of musculoskeletal (MLTI) injuries, while the decline in injuries of a non-musculoskeletal (NMLTI) nature was marginal. In general, the method can be applied to assess the effectiveness of intervention trials on other populations at high risk of occupational injury.

Accidents, Occupational↗

PubMed2002

Effectiveness of a workplace risk assessment team in reducing the rate, cost, and duration of occupational injury.

This study evaluated the effectiveness of a consultative workplace risk assessment team in reducing the rate and severity of injury among cleaners within a 600-bed hospital. Cohorts of Cleaning Services and Orderly Services staff ever employed within both a 4-year preintervention and a 3-year postintervention period were assigned to the intervention and comparison groups, respectively. The date, compensation claims' cost, and hours lost from work were obtained for each injury during the study period. Age, gender, work experience, and hours worked were ascertained for every subject whether injured or not. Reductions of two thirds in injury rate, 73% in cost rate, and 43% in duration rate were evident in the intervention group. In comparison, the orderlies experienced a postintervention increase in all three rates. The success of the workplace risk assessment team intervention supports the adoption of a participatory approach to reducing the rate and consequence of workplace injury.

Accidents, Occupational↗