OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to assess effects of exercise on shoulder musculoskeletal symptoms among employees with overhead assembly work exposures. METHODS: A voluntary workplace shoulder exercise program was offered to employees in two automotive assembly departments, while two similar departments served as controls. N = 76 total workers participated. Shoulder Rating Questionnaire (SRQ) and Discomfort of the Arm Shoulder and Hand (DASH) symptoms were queried monthly for 7 baseline months, followed by 6 months that included exercise. RESULTS: SRQ scores were higher for exercisers than among controls in the 6 exercising months, but not in the baseline months. Although the group x month interaction was significant (P < 0.05), the temporal trend was inconsistent. CONCLUSIONS: Exercise may have temporarily lessened decline in SRQ. It is not clear whether shorter term differences were clinically meaningful or predictive of longer term disability prevention.

Thomas R. Waters had a distinguished career in the field of occupational ergonomics for 24 years while working at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). Although his work focused on musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) across many industries, including manufacturing, retail trade, warehousing, agriculture, and health care, he is most known for leading the development and validation of the Revised NIOSH Lifting Equation (RNLE) starting in 1993. The RNLE has become the most widely used ergonomic assessment tool in the world. Researchers across the world are now revising and expanding this equation to ensure wide applicability of the RNLE. Waters published 27 articles on the RNLE, with one of the last articles being awarded the 2000 Alice Hamilton Award for Excellence in the Human Studies (Waters et al., 1999) and another expanding the RNLE to be used by pregnant workers lifting at work (MacDonald et al., 2013). The reach of this tool has been phenomenal, with almost 65,000 downloads of the RNLE documentation from the NIOSH Web page between 2007 and 2012, more than 72,000 page views from 2009 to 2012, and more than 25,000 copies of the RNLE distributed by NIOSH. More than 130 articles have been published that employ the RNLE as an assessment tool, providing one indication of the impact that this tool has had on the field.

BACKGROUND: This article examines serious and fatal pneumatic nail gun (PNG) injury investigations for workplace, tool design, and human factors relevant to causation and resulting OS&H authorities' responses in terms of citations and penalties. METHODS: The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) database of Fatality and Catastrophe Investigation Summaries (F&CIS) were reviewed (1985-2012) to identify n = 258 PNG accidents. RESULTS: 79.8% of investigations, and 100% of fatalities, occurred in the construction industry. Between 53-71% of injuries appear to have been preventable had a safer sequential trigger tool been used. Citations and monetary penalties were related to injury severity, body part injured, disabling of safety devices, and insufficient personal protective equipment (PPE). CONCLUSIONS: Differences may exist between construction and other industries in investigators interpretations of PNG injury causation and resulting citations/penalties. Violations of PPE standards were penalized most severely, yet the preventive effect of PPE would likely have been less than that of a safer sequential trigger.

Pneumatic framing nail gun use is ubiquitous throughout the modern homebuilding industry. This tool has a safety device at the end of the gun muzzle that must be depressed before the fastener can be discharged. Generally, these devices have two types of trigger systems that then define how the nail gun fires in response to a trigger press: 1. The sequential actuation trigger requires that each nail can only be discharged when the safety tip is first depressed and, while held depressed, the trigger is squeezed. 2. The contact actuation trigger allows the operator to first squeeze the trigger and, while holding the trigger squeezed, repeatedly bump the safety tip on the workpiece to shoot multiple nails. In the authors' view, however, an unintended consequence of the recommendations published in (Baggs, et al, 1999) and (2001) has been the creation of the appearance of competing risks with nail gun trigger systems.

The increasingly popular practice of using a stability ball (exercise/fitness ball) as a sitting surface runs counter to conventional human factors/ergonomics guidelines for seated workspace design. Employees sitting on stability balls in an office environment present safety risks that might be justifiable if the practice has a definitive benefit to the promotion of health. However, the published studies and best evidence to date call into question even the theoretical basis for this practice and do not suggest significant health benefits. First, biomechanical studies do not confirm the intended trunk muscle activation. Second, energy expenditure studies show a small (if any) increase in metabolic demand that is unlikely to be effective in combating sedentary work risk factors. Until studies demonstrate more conclusive benefits, the practice of stability ball sitting should be viewed skeptically as a general workplace recommendation in the interest of health or wellness.

Empirically-based lifting criteria established by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to reduce risk of overexertion injuries in the general U.S. working population were evaluated for application to pregnant workers. This report proposes criteria to guide decisions by medical providers about permissible weights for lifting tasks performed at work over the course of an uncomplicated pregnancy. Our evaluation included an extensive review of the literature linking occupational lifting to maternal and fetal health. Although it has been 29 years since the American Medical Association’s (AMA) Council on Scientific Affairs published its report on the Effects of Pregnancy on Work Performance, these guidelines continue to influence clinical decisions and workplace policies. Provisional clinical guidelines derived from the NIOSH lifting criteria are presented that account for recent evidence for maternal and fetal health, and aim to improve the standard of care for pregnant workers.