Kris Siddharthan, Michael Hodgson, Deborah Rosenberg, Donna Haiduven and Audrey Nelson
Work‐related musculoskeletal disorders following patient contact represent a major concern for health care workers. Unfortunately, research and prevention have been hampered by…
Abstract
Purpose
Work‐related musculoskeletal disorders following patient contact represent a major concern for health care workers. Unfortunately, research and prevention have been hampered by difficulties ascertaining true prevalence rates owing to under‐reporting of these injuries. The purpose of this study is to determine the predictors for under‐reporting work‐related musculoskeletal injuries and their reasons.
Design/methodology/approach
Multivariate analysis using data obtained in a survey of Veterans Administration employees in the USA was used to determine underreporting patterns among registered nurses, licensed practical nurses and nursing assistants. Focus groups among health care workers were conducted at one of the largest Veterans Administration hospitals to determine reasons for under‐reporting.
Findings
A significant number of workers reported work‐related musculoskeletal pain, which was not reported as an injury but required rescheduling work such as changing shifts and taking sick leave to recuperate. The findings indicate that older health care workers and those with longer service were less likely to report as were those working in the evening and night shifts. Hispanic workers and personnel who had repetitive injuries were prone to under‐reporting, as were workers in places that lack proper equipment to move and handle patients. Reasons for under‐reporting include the time involved, peer pressure not to report and frustration with workers' compensation procedures.
Originality/value
This study provides insights into under‐reporting musculoskeletal injuries in a major US government organization. The research indicates that current reporting procedures appear to be overtly cumbersome in time and effort. More flexible work assignments are needed to cover staff shortfalls owing to injuries. Health education on the detrimental long‐term effects of ergonomic injuries and the need for prompt attention to injuries should prove useful in improving rates of reporting.
Details
Keywords
Purpose – In North America today, we are witnessing an unprecedented preoccupation with “excess” weight, with millions of people perceived to be part of the epidemic of obesity…
Abstract
Purpose – In North America today, we are witnessing an unprecedented preoccupation with “excess” weight, with millions of people perceived to be part of the epidemic of obesity. While this chapter does not seek to contest medical evidence that average weights of North Americans have risen in recent years, nor deny the potential development of associated health problems, it offers a critique of the terminology invoked in these discussions and especially challenges the characterization of increased weight among the population as an “epidemic.” This chapter suggests that what we are witnessing is more appropriately understood as a moral regulation project premised on ideas of risk, contagion, and neoliberal discourses of health.
Methodology/approach – In arguing that the concern about obesity may be understood as an example of moral regulation, this chapter employs the work of Alan Hunt, as well as Deborah Lupton's insights on governmentality and health.
Findings – In reviewing the scholarly literature on obesity as well as Canadian public health initiatives, a discourse of risk and contagion is evident. The overweight and obese (and these are commonly conflated) are presented as dangerous to themselves and others.
Contribution to the field – In suggesting an alternative understanding of the obesity “epidemic” as a socially constructed and morally regulated phenomenon, this chapter aims to further discuss and reassess how those who are considered fat are understood and treated in North America.
In this chapter, my aim is to describe and analyse conceptually and provide direction for the identification, selection and use of assistive technologies (ATs) to support the…
Abstract
In this chapter, my aim is to describe and analyse conceptually and provide direction for the identification, selection and use of assistive technologies (ATs) to support the education and development of young children with disabilities. The chapter discusses the quality of early intervention practices and the pragmatic role of ATs in delivering effective early intervention impacts. In making this case, the chapter draws upon Vygotsky's cultural-historical theory to illuminate how ATs can be selected and used effectively in schools to enable all young children to thrive in their learning and development in inclusive classrooms.
Details
Keywords
Marcia Texler Segal and Vasilikie Demos
This introduction discusses the ways the idea of generation has been used in scholarship, for the general public, and in marketing to define and discuss social trends and…
Abstract
This introduction discusses the ways the idea of generation has been used in scholarship, for the general public, and in marketing to define and discuss social trends and understand behavior. The need to apply an intersectional lens to the concept is stressed. The eight chapters in the volume, each of which applies such a lens, are summarized. The particular relevance of gender and generation to the current Covid-19 pandemic is highlighted by the introduction and the chapters. Topics include transmission of and changes in gender attitudes and beliefs, generational differences in LGBTQ experiences, retirement and caregiving.
Details
Keywords
David Greenfield, Deborah Debono, Anne Hogden, Reece Hinchcliff, Virginia Mumford, Marjorie Pawsey, Johanna Westbrook and Jeffrey Braithwaite
Health systems are changing at variable rates. Periods of significant change can create new challenges or amplify existing barriers to accreditation program credibility and…
Abstract
Purpose
Health systems are changing at variable rates. Periods of significant change can create new challenges or amplify existing barriers to accreditation program credibility and reliability. The purpose of this paper is to examine, during the transition to a new Australian accreditation scheme and standards, challenges to health service accreditation survey reliability, the salience of the issues and strategies to manage threats to survey reliability.
Design/methodology/approach
Across 2013-2014, a two-phase, multi-method study was conducted, involving five research activities (two questionnaire surveys and three group discussions). This paper reports data from the transcribed group discussions involving 100 participants, which was subject to content and thematic analysis. Participants were accreditation survey coordinators employed by the Australian Council on Healthcare Standards.
Findings
Six significant issues influencing survey reliability were reported: accreditation program governance and philosophy; accrediting agency management of the accreditation process, including the program’s framework; survey coordinators; survey team dynamics; individual surveyors; and healthcare organizations’ approach to accreditation. A change in governance arrangements promoted reliability with an independent authority and a new set of standards, endorsed by Federal and State governments. However, potential reliability threats were introduced by having multiple accrediting agencies approved to survey against the new national standards. Challenges that existed prior to the reformed system remain.
Originality/value
Capturing lessons and challenges from healthcare reforms is necessary if improvements are to be realized. The study provides practical and theoretical strategies to promote reliability in accreditation programs.
Details
Keywords
Josh Brochhausen and Adam Podrat, as partners in The Resource, wrote commercial music for the ads of several companies. They were innovators in the recording studio, and their…
Abstract
Josh Brochhausen and Adam Podrat, as partners in The Resource, wrote commercial music for the ads of several companies. They were innovators in the recording studio, and their music appealed to young consumers.
Josh and Adam also had become involved in producing records for hip hop artists. They undertook a project called Deaf in the Family, which was a full length album featuring artists from the hip hop underground. The record was well received among music critics from the underground press, but the project made no money because Josh and Adam did not have the financing to secure the appropriate clearances for the right to use samples from existing songs.
Their problem centered on the uncertainty of financial success in producing hip hop records, which was their passion, and deciding whether to devote energy and resources toward it, and away from making commercial music, which was their livelihood.
Francis Lau, Sandra Doze, Doug Vincent, Deborah Wilson, Tom Noseworthy, Robert Hayward and Andrew Penn
This paper describes our experiences from a two‐year research study to introduce evidence‐based practice (EBP) through a set of electronic information tools into two Canadian…
Abstract
This paper describes our experiences from a two‐year research study to introduce evidence‐based practice (EBP) through a set of electronic information tools into two Canadian health regions. The improvisational model of technological change by Orlikowski and Hofman (1997) is used to provide the conceptual foundations for understanding the pattern of evolution associated with the tools observed in these two settings over time. Key areas to consider when changing practice identified from this study are time availability, intended use, adequate training, clinical champions, work practice fit, system refinement, around‐the‐clock support and environment influence. Health organizations should also distinguish anticipated, emergent and opportunistic changes and improvise accordingly when introducing EBP information tools in a setting that is characteristically complex, dynamic and unpredictable.
Details
Keywords
We've been living in a homogenous world, you know a world centered on and seen through the language perceptions of men. The consequences of this for everything that we take for…
Abstract
We've been living in a homogenous world, you know a world centered on and seen through the language perceptions of men. The consequences of this for everything that we take for granted, for all our assumptions are very deep. Feminism, in the sense I use it, is a radical complexity thought in the process of transforming itself. It is a kind of breaking open of not only the oversimplification but of the lies and the silence in which so much of human experience has been cloaked. Too much has been left out, too much has been unmentioned, too much has been made taboo. Too many connections have been disguised or denied. (Interview with Adrienne Rich, Christopher Street, Jan. 1977, pp. 9–16.)
The corporate food regime is presented here as a vector of the project of global development. As such, it expresses not only the social and ecological contradictions of…
Abstract
The corporate food regime is presented here as a vector of the project of global development. As such, it expresses not only the social and ecological contradictions of capitalism, but also the world-historical conjuncture in which the deployment of price and credit relations are key mechanisms of ‘accumulation through dispossession.’ The global displacement of peasant cultures of provision by dumping, the supermarket revolution, and conversion of land for agro-exports, incubate ‘food sovereignty’ movements expressing alternative relationships to the land, farming and food.