Participatory ergonomics: determining injury control "buy-in" of US Army cadre

Overuse injuries account for the majority of lost duty time profiles for soldiers attending Advanced Individual Training (AIT) to become a Combat Medic at Ft. Sam Houston (63% for men and 74% for women). An intervention program was initiated with two AIT Battalions (BN) in an effort to reduce overuse injuries. The purpose of this paper is to describe methods of tracking the participation of supervisors during the intervention program. Methods used to monitor participation included recording the number of coordinating meetings, keeping minutes of advisory committee meetings, and conducting perception surveys. Over an 18-month period, the number of coordinating meetings decreased. Surveys identified the opinions, values, and self-identified roles of supervisors (drill sergeants and cadre) in regard to injury prevention with their assigned student-soldiers before and after an intervention program. At the initiation of the injury control program, 103 individuals completed a 27 question, anonymous survey to assist planners with developing a strategy that would encourage participation of cadre and drill sergeants in preventing injuries. One year later, 191 individuals from the same battalion completed the same survey. Results revealed a slight, statistically insignificant, decrease in supervisors' perception of the presence of overuse injuries in their BN (31.4% vs. 27.4%, p>0.05), and the level of acceptable injuries moved from the 16-30% range to the 1-10% range (chi2=4.65, p<0.05). Post-intervention, more supervisors believed their physical training programs could impact overuse injuries (pre 20.4% vs. post 31.6%, Chi2=6.7, p<0.01). The results reveal several methods to track the involvement of participants, to develop intervention strategies, and to monitor cultural shifts necessary to the injury control process.     

Predicting the policy choices of individual legislators: A comparative study of Canada and the United States

For this project we measured a set of variables defining the demographic and career characteristics and the values of lawmakers and used this information to predict policy decisions. Legislators were surveyed in three Canadian provinces and two American states. Regression analysis was used to build a linear prediction equation for two policy issue areas: educational funding and welfare/unemployment compensation.For both American state legislators and Canadian provincial legislators, the best overall predictors of policy choice are value orientations. Demographic and career attributes, however, are also important determinants of policy choice. It was actually possible to explain just as much of the variance in policy support scores by using career and demographic attributes alone - ignoring the data describing the values of the legislators.Although studies of decision-making are central to the discipline of political science, this project stands apart from most previous research efforts for several reasons: (1) it incorporates an explicitly measured dependent variable; (2) it employs a comparative perspective, which analyzes the membership of several legislative assemblies cross-nationally, focusing on the United States and Canada; and (3) it evaluates legislators along a variety of dimensions.     

How are the Kids Doing? How do We Know?

With a focus on the United States, this paper addresses the basic social indicators question: How are we doing? More specifically, with respect to children, how are our kids (including adolescents and youths) doing? These questions can be addressed by comparisons: (1) to past historical values, (2) to other contemporaneous units (e.g., comparisons among subpopulations, states, regions, countries), or (3) to goals or other externally established standards. The Child and Youth Well-Being Index (CWI), which we have developed over the past decade, uses all three of these points of comparison. The CWI is a composite index based on 28 social indicator time series of various aspects of the well-being of children and youth in American society that date back to 1975, which is used as a base year for measuring changes (improvements or deterioration) in subsequent years. The CWI is evidence-based not only in the sense that it uses time series of empirical data for its construction, but also because the 28 indicators are grouped into seven domains of well-being or areas of social life that have been found to define the conceptual space of the quality of life in numerous studies of subjective well-being. Findings from research using the CWI reported in the paper include: (1) trends in child and youth well-being in the United States over time, (2) international comparisons, and (3) best-practice analyses.     

An initial exploration of a community-based framework for educational equity with explicated exemplars

Educational equity dominates discussions of US schooling. However, what ‘educational equity’ means is much contested in the scholarly literature and in public discourses. We follow the lead of scholars of color who have problematized the definition of educational equity. They have shown that the dominant, taken-for-granted definitions of equity which disguises the accumulation of societal and educational exclusions of and prejudices toward historically marginalized students, their families, and their communities. In response to this critique, we offer a new definitional framework for ‘educational equity’ that is community-based and, in our specific case, urban community-based. And, then, we will apply this new equity framework to three examples or ‘exemplars’ of education reform to explicate how they do and do not illustrate our framework. We will finish with a brief discussion, recommendations for future scholarship, and some concluding remarks.     

Transforming a hospital safety and ergonomics program: a four year journey of change

The conception of "Patient Safety" being the number one priority at Hospitals can reduce the emphasis on overall employee safety and health. This review examines a hospital's need to improve 24/7 active (i.e., not reactive) coverage, regulatory compliance, as well as the frequency and severity of employee injury losses. It also discusses a journey to integrate and improve safety and ergonomics to achieve these goals. Three approaches used by the ergonomist to create the transformation included: 1) adoption of the safety and ergonomic hazard identification; 2) safe patient handling; and 3) implementation of a 5S program. The results of the four (4) year effort at the not for profit, 637 bed, full service, acute-care hospital has shown a steady decline in frequency, reduced waste, and improved housekeeping. Ergonomists can have a key role in transforming Hospital Safety and Ergonomic Programs.     

Outcomes of a revised apprentice carpenter fall prevention training curriculum

Falls from heights are a leading cause of morbidity and mortality among construction workers, especially inexperienced workers and those performing residential construction. This research reports changes in fall prevention behaviors following revision of fall prevention training in a union-based carpenters' apprenticeship program. We used a comprehensive needs assessment to identify gaps in apprentice carpenters' preparation to work at heights, used these results to guide a school-based fall prevention curriculum to fill these gaps, and measured the effects of the revised curriculum on knowledge, beliefs, and fall prevention behaviors.     

On Decomposition and Aggregation Error in Estimation: Some Basic Principles and Examples

A common strategy in estimation is to decompose the quantity being estimated into several factors, estimate a value for each factor, and then reaggregate these values to obtain an overall estimate. Until now, the extent of decomposition to use has been considered largely a matter of judgment. However, both the extent of decomposition and the manner in which the results are reaggregated can have a significant effect on the resulting estimate. This paper discusses factors affecting the optimum level of decomposition, and presents examples showing that the use of nonoptimal decomposition strategies can lead to significant inaccuracies.