Grant: Planning and Dissemination Grant - Institute Community Support

Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) are injuries to muscles, ligaments and tendons and are a primary cause of pain, disability and impairment among Canadian workers. Mining is a changing industry that exposes workers to risk factors linked to MSDs include work demands and personal factors. Work demands include prolonged, repetitive movements, shift-work and vibration associated with machines used in mining. Personal factors such as sex/gender (s/g) may also be an important consideration as women experience a higher prevalence of MSDs than men. Women are starting to enter the mining sector; a local start-up stone processing mine reports that 10% of their current employees are women. The relationship between MSD risk factors such as work demands and s/g are poorly understood, particularly in the mining sector. The proposed planning project will enable development of a research partnership with a Northwestern, Ontario stone processing mine that is in the start-up phase of their operation. The primary objective of the planning grant is to use an integrated knowledge translation approach to conduct a series of activities that will support development the partnership between the mine and researchers with expertise in ergonomics and mining. There are two primary activities that will support the research team as they prepare for submitting to the CIHR Project Grant competition in 2018: 1) identify research priorities related injury / illness burden among male and female mining workers 2.) identify corresponding research methodological strategies to address the research priorities.This is a unique opportunity to develop research priorities that reflect the specific work context and incorporate s/g considerations that are urgently needed in this changing work environment.