Contrasting Prevalence of Health and Safety Risks and Controls
Table of Contents
- Welcome to contrast in prevalence of health and safety risks and controls...
- Now when we think about health and safety in the construction industry I...
- Fewer foremen for the number of workers or there are a few foreman on the job...
- The previous slide that they're reporting a lot more low back pain...
- Take it a little further and try to push upstream not only for seeking treatment...
- Questions also was around any other data sources at the national or state level...
00:00
welcome to contrast in prevalence of
health and safety risks and controls
between residential and commercial
construction apprentices this webinar is
part of our construction webinar series
and we're very happy ur here my name is
Joost Robinson goon Administrative
Coordinator and projects manager with
the work wellness and disability
prevention Institute and I'll be Co
moderating the webinar today this
webinar is made possible through the
support of the community gaming grant
program through the BC government as
00:29
well as donations and memberships to WW
dpi
we thank our program partners Canadian
Council on rehabilitation and work
Education Advisory Committee and
speakers who contribute to this webinar
series while we're waiting for others to
join us I'll go over a few technical
points for the webinar you should be
able to hear the presentation through
your computer speakers or through the
conference call line if you dialed in
please use the question box to submit
any issues you may be experiencing and
to ask any questions you have related to
01:01
the presentation we will collect
questions submitted throughout the
presentation and follow the presentation
with a Q&A based on the questions
submitted follow in the webinar any
questions not answered in the allotted
time will be answered and distributed
after the event the presentation will be
recorded and posted for free on our
website within a week along with the
slides you will be emailed the direct
links for all of these items when
they're available today's webinar will
be Co moderated by dr. Catherine Berkman
01:32
associate director of knowledge transfer
and exchange of the center of research
expertise for the prevention of
musculoskeletal disorders Catherine will
also be moderating our Q&A session and I
will let her introduce herself and dr.
Ann Marie Dale who will be our presenter
today wonderful thank you so much
and userid you just want to confirm that
you can hear me all right yep perfect
wonderful on behalf of dr. Jack Callahan
at Cree MSD as we are more commonly
02:04
known it's a pleasure to partner in this
construction webinar series and we thank
work wellness and disability prevention
Institute for this opportunity
it's really a pleasure for me to
introduce to you today our speaker dr.
and Marie Dale and I just want to tell
you about a few things about her because
I'm sure not all of you have had a
chance to read her bio dr. Dale has over
30 years of experience in the clinical
treatment of work-related upper
extremity conditions and in worksite
02:36
based prevention of Mis musculoskeletal
disorders she has used a variety of
intervention methods for individuals and
groups of workers in many industries
including healthcare construction retail
grocery automotive manufacturing and
other service industries to prevent or
reduce the effects of physical exposures
from work tasks since joining the O s HR
group in 2001 she earned her doctorate
in epidemiology with a focus on
03:08
measurement and evaluation of MSDS she
is currently exploring safety and
ergonomic interventions in the
construction industry and participatory
health interventions among retail
grocery workers both projects focus on
reducing physical exposures and
improving the health of workers dr. Dale
has a passion for helping workers
maintain and regain function in order to
lead successful and productive lives
03:39
it is a great pressure for me to have
dr. Ann Marie Dale present this very
compelling presentation today over to
you in well thank you very much for the
kind words and thank you both for
providing me the opportunity to present
some of our research this is very new
research but conducting research studies
in the construction industry is
something that our team here at
Washington University has been engaged
04:10
in for over 18 years now and I did think
it is through those experiences that we
are now getting at some of the they're
getting to the heart of the issues that
these workers are struggling with in the
at the worksite
and I hope that our listeners today will
gain some knowledge as a part of this
process so the presentation today I
would like to acknowledge a long list of
co-authors listed on the screen
04:42
dr. Roman Strickland Kelly and evanov
but in addition to that this work is
conducted as part of the healthcare
workforce center of the Midwest of which
Washington University is one of the
individuals one of the universities that
are running that Center our work is in
as one of the centers of excellence for
total worker health and NIOSH and they
05:14
are the funders of the research that I'm
about to present so without further ado
I'd like to proceed to give you a little
background to the this particular
project so for those of you who may not
know construction is an incredibly
dangerous industry there they need the
number of fatalities and non-fatal
injuries in many of the areas compared
05:44
to other industries and there are also
some very challenging things to dealing
with the construction industry in terms
of trying to prevent these injuries the
environments given the fact that they
are constructing a building is which is
often the case or a bridge or a road the
environment is constantly changing and
therefore the workers must adapt to
whatever the tasks are for the day and
06:14
in fact the task may change over the
course of a single day in addition there
are many specialists that are needed to
create the building and as a result many
different employers may be working
side-by-side to construct a single
building many of those employers though
might be very small in size construction
is often
consists of a large number of small
sized employers in fact many
06:45
construction workers will form their own
company and go out and secure work on
projects and so having companies the
size of two three ten workers is not
uncommon and it is in part due to the
these variables with the changing nature
of work the size of the employers when
we see a high turnover of workers on
projects as well as in the industry it
07:18
is it's hard to track these individuals
from place to place and over time the
other another issue that we deal with in
the construction industry is these
individuals often suffer from only
making low wages bring in workers make
higher wages by nature but in general
these are not high paid workers much of
the work is seasonal for some workers
07:51
particularly if their work is the
outside part of construction but even
those who can work inside don't always
have regular work many of these workers
are considered independent contractors
they don't actually work for an a single
employer and so they oftentimes their
job is limited to the length of the
project that they are working on the
08:22
growing number of industries that are
now hiring and being employed by
temporary workers is growing in our US
population and that was well described
in the fishery workplace book by David
David Neil and I think that this is
affecting the construction industry more
and more as time goes on and workers do
not have regular have regular jobs or
single employers
08:54
now when we think about health and
safety in the construction industry I
think we historically have thought about
the issues that you see in this depicted
in this picture which is a group of
hired workers sitting on an i-beam
hanging over New York City and of course
we're all appalled to think that this is
actually our true picture that was taken
because back in these days there was no
need or no concern for fall safety and
09:26
so these individuals are just sitting
out on this Ivy but the truth is today's
in today's world many of these
individuals are all of these individuals
would need to have some sort of fall
protection so that they were not at risk
of falling because we are concerned
about fatal injuries but the truth is
more of those workers probably died from
the other hazard you see depicted in
this picture which is smoking rather
09:57
than fall into their death from this Ivy
so historically we have been concerned
about safety and the question is what
other risks are we not attending to
traditional workplace hazards then from
the perspective of OSHA have looked at
these particular hazards the physical
biological chemical biomechanical and
safety in the area of construction much
of the greatest hazards are in safety
10:30
with regard to machine equipment and
slips trips and falls there are some
biomechanical exposures with posterior
by repetition some biological exposures
with asbestos and of course going back
to the beginning physical exposures with
noise and vibration and then working
outdoor foot temperature most of the
regulations that are related to the
fatalities in particular fall in the
area of safety but there are many
11:03
non-traditional workplace hazards that
should be considered
but are rarely discussed related to
construction worker training knowing
what they're doing are they trained
adequately significant amount of forced
overtime in order to complete projects
that are not done in a way is the
monotony of work in some cases
harassment from bosses to keep up with
schedules discrimination for workers and
11:34
all of those things also do not consider
some other factors that these
individuals might be exposed to such as
if they have to drive between jobs
making sure that the the amount of
driving they have just to get to and
from work and so we'll talk about a few
more of those but there are many
non-traditional hazards that we should
be concerned about that are not in your
addressed in construction so there are
12:08
several factors that are unique to
construction one of the things in the
upper left picture we see is that
construction workers were days away from
work and this is particularly true in
the middle-aged populations beginning at
the age of 35 we can see their days away
from work are nearly double those
industries and similarly as the aged
worker construction worker continues to
have higher rates of lost days the upper
12:38
right graph is interesting it shows the
seasonality of work and the frequency of
unemployment of construction in red
compared to all other non-farm related
work you can see that there are no there
are not significant periods of time that
the individual might be unemployed but
they certainly would have trouble paying
bills on a consistent basis with that
type of employment and the bottom
picture shows the frequency of smokers
13:09
is much higher than all other industries
we're going to talk a little bit more
about that issue
so most of work related to health and
safety focuses on work and safety policy
for traditional work outcomes the
traditional work safety policies in the
upper left hand box show the concern for
hearing protection the concern for the
physical to the ends of the work using
13:42
assistive devices wearing safety glasses
and ventilation controls among others
and then those are directly related to
the work outcomes we're trying to
prevent the number of injuries the
number of miss days or to maintain work
productivity less common outcomes but
certainly outcomes that are discussed
related to those traditional workplace
safety or in the bottom right and those
would be things related to low back
symptoms because that might affect work
14:15
productivity Oh more recently here in
the u.s. in particular there's a strong
concern for the use of pain medication
and in particular opioids and the risk
of addiction for opioid use which is
continuing to play havoc not only with
our nation but strongly in our
construction industry and then mental
health although that's not commonly
discussed it is a growing problem I
think in all industries and we see the
14:47
same thing happen in its construction
but the bottom left box shows some
non-traditional health factors that are
rarely considered in the construction
environment the use of sunscreen despite
the fact that they work outdoors or many
of them work outdoors all year-round the
there's little concern for having access
to food to purchase with these
individuals that might be working on
15:19
sites where it's challenging for them to
walk to their car to go out to get food
or even just having a clean place to eat
if they bring their food to work
furthermore there are there's varying
degrees of tobacco and alcohol policies
for these for this industry so when we
think of construction most people think
that all construction work is similar
and what I'm here to talk about is a
little bit of the differences between
15:51
types of construction and in particular
I'm going to talk about carpenters a
group that we have been working with and
then there's a large difference in some
of the rules and policies between the
residential and the commercial workers
in the left side of your picture of your
screen you see two pictures and these
are commercial workers you can see the
workers are wearing high visibility
16:21
clothing they're working wearing hard
hats they should be working very high
protection they're wearing sleeve
protections and gloves the gentlemen in
both the upper and the lower section are
tied off or cabled to the the system so
if they fall that will catch them and
they have on hard steel toed shoes to
protect their feet in the event that
16:51
some object falls on them on the right
side you see several workers in the
residential area you can see there's no
high this color there there are
individuals in the picture that are
wearing tennis shoes they are barehanded
with no gloves
there's the gentleman in the lower right
picture who's up on a pick board on the
third floor of a house does not have any
fall protection and so he's standing on
17:24
a board about one foot one foot wide and
if if he falls there's nothing to catch
it so the residential activities and the
policies are though that environment in
that environment is quite different at
the bottom of your screen I point out
some of those
differences there are fewer safety
regulations in residential it's a much
less formal organization and there's
much less project oversight there are
17:54
fewer foremen for the number of workers
or there are a few foreman on the job
overall the crews tend to be smaller in
residential and though the the leaders
tend to have less knowledge in projects
it's we're going to show you the data is
from apprentice carpenters which are the
least skilled of all the trades but it's
18:26
not all the workers in construction or
carpenters and yet it's not uncommon for
an apprentice carpenter in their later
later years of their four-year training
to already be running jobs so it doesn't
take much to work your way up this
system and yet many of these individuals
don't really have the necessary
experience so the point the presentation
today will just compare the safety and
18:58
health risks and supports between
residential and commercial apprentice
construction workers there has been
little out there published on the
current programs policies and practices
to promote worker health and well-being
in construction which is our motivation
okay so here's the so what we have done
is we've collected surveys in the
carpenter apprentice program here this
is a single year of data we have 934
surveys that were completed which is a
19:29
response rate of 90% there's a little
over a thousand workers carpenters in
this group there's a mean age which is
quite young as you would expect for
apprentices of 28 with a short period of
time in the system of only two point six
years each on average they report
driving 45 minutes or 45 miles one way
to work
so many of them have long long commutes
20:00
um the majority of this particular
population is white or Caucasian which
is a union group of apprentices and
there are many fewer minorities in this
particular group they twenty-eight
percent of them are current daily
smokers which again is above the
national average the ten percent are
only ten percent use sunscreen
thirty-two percent would be considered
20:30
heavy drinkers where they report
drinking more than five drinks for more
than five days per month forty-nine
percent or almost half say they report
they sleep less than seven hours per
night on the workplace these same
individuals say sixty three percent say
there's no limits on the number of hours
they work each day fifty-five percent
say they are smoking restrictions at the
worksite and only four percent say the
21:03
worksite provides sunscreen so I just
picked out a few of the items related to
both traditional and non-traditional
safety safety and health concerns that
we would have to for this presentation
here are a few more these are
predominantly in the safety area so even
in safety in this population we can see
that the amount of adherence the safety
policies and procedures varies across
21:38
these different these workers are
recording they vary across the different
work on so and these are all carpenters
at this point not necessarily
residential versus commercial so you can
see almost all regardless of residential
commercial they're all out nearly all
reported receiving drug screens wearing
hard hats wearing safety glasses but
after those top three we start to see
quite a full drop-off of safety with
22:09
quite a few having cell phone use
restrictions which is applauded about
visible Ivan's
clothing and smoking restrictions are
somewhat high hearing protection and
gloves and then we see very few have a
need or require majora respirators
hearing tests and radiation testing and
some of those things might be just
because the nature of the work they're
exposed to really does not have some of
those risks here I'm presenting those
22:42
same some of those same items but
separating them out between residential
and commercial so you can see hearing
and protection hearing protection and
policy for residential is only 35
percent 466 percent our samples fairly
split with the 900 individuals with 400
in residential and over isn't a small
sample size for residential workers if
23:14
we look down our list for safety glasses
that's pretty similar between the two
groups ventilation controls is much
lower for residential but here there may
be less need for ventilation controls
this is not to say that they lack
policies and there's a need for policies
we just they're just reporting there are
fewer policies smoking restriction is
less common much less common on
residential compared to commercial cell
phone use is pretty similar which is
23:44
kind of interesting somewhat smaller but
they're still pretty similar mandatory
overtime is less on residential compared
to commercial and daily work our limit
is higher on residential compared to
commercial so those last two actually
are in favor of at the residential
worker compared to the commercial worker
where the commercial worker is having
higher demands on their work time in
their work hours but the residential
24:16
worker has fewer policies being put on
them for hearing safety go out
hearing ventilation and smoking then if
we look at the outcomes we see that the
number of missed days is higher for
residential and the number of low back
symptoms is also significantly so the
though so here we would think though the
number of portables we would be finding
24:47
in the osha logs would be
correspondingly higher here we see some
non-traditional health factors that I
reported before but not splitting them
between residential and commercial again
using sunscreen doesn't matter there's
no difference between the chin grooves
and wearing seatbelt there's no
difference between the two groups well
when we get down to excess of food and
having a clean place to eat there's a
market difference between residential
25:20
and commercial and this you know is
likely due to the fact that commercial
has more policies is requiring there's
more formal nough students that the
contractors make when they enter into
the bid where in residential that's not
does not seem to be as common in there
and their bidding processes for the
individual projects each of the workers
on residential it appears has to fend
25:51
for themselves quite a bit more here we
see the non-traditional health factors
separated between residential and
commercial remember of individuals who
drink alcohol
number of days per month is
significantly higher among the
residential value point 3 compared to
their commercial seven-page here we see
the number of current smokers and
residential is also higher 31 percent
26:24
compared to 25 percent so even the
commercial is higher than the national
average for all industries but
residential is even higher and if you
recall going back to our earlier
the policies smoking policies on
residential was much lower so one would
mean there's a connection between
smoking policies and smoke coders being
able to smoke health problems affecting
work productivity the residential
workers are saying that's true we saw in
26:55
the previous slide that they're
reporting a lot more low back pain
they're reporting more in those days of
work and here they're reporting that
they believe their health problems are
affecting their productivity and the
last one is a large concern which is
those who are receiving prescription
medications for pain 15% compared to 10%
and remember back at the early slides I
told you this as an average population
age of 28 who have only been working in
27:27
this work force for 2.6 years on average
and yet when you have a large number of
these individuals that are already
seeking treatment for pain and the
prescription are getting prescription
that's for that pain here we see each of
these are individual models that are
looking at three different outcomes the
missed days of work as one outcome
having a low work ability of just less
27:57
than nine has an outcome and having
health productivity that we dichotomize
as low one or and what we're seeing here
is the prevalence for residential
workers in the first row is 75% higher
or more more common to have missed days
than those that are not working in the
residential construction if we look over
28:31
on the far right that for the
residential group we see that their
health productivity 57% of them are
saying their health productivity is less
than those who are not working in
residential construction similarly we
look at the second row of information we
can see that those who are reporting
poor job security are much more common
for low workability 52% are reporting
29:03
will workability and 61% are reporting
low productivity if they have poor job
security and the last one shows those
who based on the jcq have high job
strain are twice or three times as often
reporting missed days of work so high
job strain is associated with a
significant number of those who are
recording these days of work know
29:35
workability is also associated with high
job strain as is low productivity so
these individuals are reporting
residential is much higher poor job
security is a strong predictor and high
job strain is a strong predictor of miss
day's low workability and loss of
productivity
here's the relationship between those
same three factors and risk taking
30:10
prescription pain medications and here
this is similar to the results we saw
earlier where what evidential is much
higher for those three poor taking pain
medication 53% here for job security is
53% related to taking prescription pain
meds and then high jobs straight so
prescription pain meds which is a big
concern we have we have three factors in
this population that are our effect are
30:40
related to that taking the payments so
this data this cross-sectional data at
this point issuing several relationships
that are of concern in particular their
residential contractors who we know are
small size and
and they have humor supports for
positive health behaviors than
commercial our data is showing that
these residential carpenters perceive
that their health is much poorer than
31:14
their commercial counterparts the
residential workers also a reporting
greater number missed days lower
workability lower work productivity and
a fairly much more common usage of pain
medication compared to their brothers
working in the commercial area work
organization also varies within
construction and we saw that with the
number of work hours being more
31:44
demanding on the commercial side hire
more often work overtime as well as yeah
overtime so I think we you know as in
conclusion I would say there's an urgent
need to address not only the problems we
have with safety continuing work on
safety and construction we have a number
of non-traditional health concerns in
32:16
construction at large but in particular
a focus on these residential workers who
have a greater number of challenges that
they face each and every day they go to
work it's also though a much more
challenging group of workers to access
the residential individuals are smaller
groups they don't their regularity of
them being found at one worksite is in
less frequent because the builds are
32:48
smaller and shorter duration workers
tend to move around between companies
more often and so I think that is part
of the reason that where we have a
greater challenge for building a culture
of health in this particular workforce
that's all and I thank you for your
thank you so much Emery and yours well
I'll just make sure everyone can hear me
I know we've had some technical
33:23
difficulties and we apologize for that
so I think this is extremely interesting
information although it does present a
very alarming profile of these
residential carpenters and I think I'll
kick off your Q&A any suggestions you
have and that can address a lot of
health and safety and I'm thinking more
around how they got information about
the survey and is this a potential
33:56
vehicle for them to get information or
training on how to look after themselves
right so as I mentioned these are union
workers so they didn't go back to the
Union of their apprenticeship program
they they attend of their apprenticeship
training four times a year for two weeks
and therefore they do receive health and
safety training as a part of that
apprenticeship this group also has
34:26
mandatory ongoing training of eight
hours that they must complete each year
and you know we have worked toward
infusing this group with more and more
information in this area we had
originals centered our efforts more
around safety and ergonomics for a
number of years but with the the growing
problem of pain management opioid use
34:59
even in our own workforce here mental
health issues are a growing problem we
have now started to increase the
resources available to these workers and
now are encouraging them to take
advantage of the various programs that
are being offered to them we have a big
challenge in all of construction and
maybe a bigger Channel
in residential and that is that these
individuals are primarily male they're
Ted this particular group tends to be
35:30
young and so they stuffer from a bit of
machoism and overcoming that I think is
going to take time for us to break down
their culture to give these gentlemen
permission to come forth and ask for
help we already see that they're going
to the doctor to get prescription
medications that otherwise they wouldn't
have access to them so I think we've
made headway on terms of getting them to
at least seek treatment now we need to
36:02
take it a little further and try to push
upstream not only for seeking treatment
earlier but giving them information so
that they're empowered to at least help
their own control their own health a
little bit more thank you and another
question that has occurred is do we know
how this sample of residential carpenter
36:31
compares to other geographies we have
not looked at I don't really know any
place else we can get residential data
to be honest with you we happen to have
the Union environment locally could
performs 90% of the residential
construction in our area and so we don't
know of any other area where people have
actually been able to report a fairly
37:03
representative sample of their area and
residential workers in their area I also
think there there are publications out
there that show the difference between
construction workers in general compared
to non construction workers and we know
that the Union I'm sorry that the union
construction worker - the non-union
construction worker and I think we've
seen that in the Union construction
worker has more benefits offered to them
so if that's the case then I think our
37:35
data is actually more activist
unfortunately then it is probably occurs
in other regions of the country okay
thank you I have a question here in
relationship to overtime and the
question is is there more overtime in
this commercial area and is it possibly
due to difference in piece work between
38:03
the two you know I think that it is not
driven by the piece work and therefore
by the compensation associated with
piece work I think it's more driven by
the fact that commercial bills are on
they they tend to be on tighter
schedules and they're it's a much
commercial bills in general tend to be
more complicated and therefore there's
more risk of schedules falling behind
products not available when it needs to
38:38
be and so therefore I think there's
often a catch-up time where the workers
are expecting you know something put
them behind the schedule their product
wasn't there on time so now everybody's
going to have to work this weekend is
much more common in the commercial world
than it is in the residential world
where if there's a delay in residential
we just say your house isn't going to be
ready on time there's a lot more
incentives for completing commercial
jobs on time and they are financial
39:09
incentives that are generally realized
by the upper management and not by the
workers themselves for the workers are
expected to perform the work interesting
any suggestion as to how to improve the
access to access their residential
industry to improve their workplace
safety as far as just reaching them with
information I think that certainly would
be one vehicle so you know I think that
39:40
a mobile van kind of a thing
particularly in large subdivisions where
you know there's a large number of those
going up
timing you can reach a larger number of
workers is one when offering bring you
know bring it to them since they don't
have the time or the willingness to come
to you bring the information to them
where they are you know we've tried
things like pushing information out
40:12
through newsletters tool box talks
toolbox talks are not as common these
are safety briefs that are done on a
daily basis very common and commercial
less common in residential but they
still do you occur and that might be a
way to give them small bits of the
information at a time those are two two
things that I would say you know we can
focus on we actually this project that
I'm presenting this information we're
40:43
actually in the process of using
intermediaries to try to do this very
thing that you're suggesting which is
how do we get information to them an
intermediary can be anyone in our system
it will generally be a union or a
supplier or an insurer who will go out
has contact with some natural in some
natural way to these workers and so they
may be out on the site delivering
products and they could deliver other
types of information or they could
41:14
deliver program materials or whatever so
we're investigating that now as a means
to reach these individuals with programs
that we think they don't know about or
that they would benefit from if they if
they knew they were available or to give
them information about where to seek
those resources that's our current
41:45
project interesting in I recall some
interesting similarities between recent
webinar related to the trucking industry
and there's probably other industries
and probably down the road future
studies could look at the
Henschel interventions that different
industries with similar profiles have
used that might have worked so I know in
the trucking industry there was some
42:18
mobile resources related to dietary
support targeted at the the smokers for
instance and some incentives for them to
eat better and then food was provided
almost through that mobile kind of
concept so there may be things that some
of our participants are aware of or
something that we could certainly look
at in future is the generalization
42:51
through other industries related to
successful interventions for those
really hard to reach industries yeah I
agree I think that we need to be we need
to think out of the box for this one
because they're hard to reach and then
we have this added cultural issue which
I do believe exists also in other
industries in the construction industry
the Brotherhood is so strong and the
43:22
need for you know proving one's self
I've been doing this a long time and I
see a change in that culture in a
positive way that allows these guys to
come forth more today than they ever
would have 18 years ago so I think that
we've made progress I think all of our
attention to this problem and the health
of these individuals is is making a
difference but I just feel as though
it's slow and we're losing a lot of our
43:52
workers in the meantime not only from
the baby boomers but also they're just
they're just not either willing to stay
in the industry or they are physically
not surviving and they're leaving the
industry for that that's a reason but
there's becoming up a bigger a fewer and
fewer workers in this area and now the
companies are are
seeking workers from other areas to come
in and do the work because we can't find
44:22
enough workers locally especially with
the the pain statistics that you have
showin the medication uptake for such a
young group already it certainly denotes
the the challenge of retention of the
worker when they are already
experiencing injuries very early on or
pain related to their work one of the
44:53
questions also was around any other data
sources at the national or state level
on some of these health factors in
general are we referring to in general
for all industries or construction I
think in general so you know I actually
think for some of the numbers that I'm
showing here I don't know if I don't
know of statistics that are out there
you know sunscreen news I would assume
some industries maybe are monitoring the
45:25
that type of thing but I don't know of
any you know national numbers I think
drinking and smoking those numbers are
very well known and construction always
needs
unfortunately it leads that group so I'm
not I'm not familiar with whether you
know these non-traditional health issues
I don't know that we know the national
numbers well for other industries or
what we do but we can definitely see a
connection between the risks for those
46:00
hazards like sun sun protection and the
fact that these individuals are working
outdoors you know 100 percent of the
time so so there's obviously a need for
for better protection than than what we
see absolutely and again I think you've
addressed some of this but in your
opinion what do you believe needs to be
done to accelerate the process to
address the health and safety of this
46:30
particular worker so you know there's
been a lot of discussion around the
table of you know we need to mandate
this through policies and yet in my
experience policies don't always create
the change we want I think they can be
you know they can be push people to at
least talk about it and how some can
leverage based on policy but compliance
isn't always going to follow I think we
really need to get the owners on board
47:04
with a need for this I know with the
opioid crisis we have here in the US
when we have an owner who has a personal
experience with an opioid overdose
fatality either among one of their
workers or their personal family they
are much more ready to talk and address
the issue and I think that you know
unfortunately the opioid crisis is going
on but it actually is starting to bring
47:34
people to the table that I think I'm
gonna give us an opportunity to not only
talk about pain and medication but some
of these other mental health issues and
some of the drinking and smoking which
are so prevalent in this this workforce
and need to be addressed because those
are definitely having an effect on the
health not only of the worker but the
lives of their family members so I think
you know bringing getting the owners and
48:05
employers to the table and getting them
on board with the need for this I think
is very important and that's that's
pretty much where we're starting I mean
I recall that in Canada in Ontario
public health did a very local campaign
across the province related to the
mental health of new mothers and because
it was done at a local provincial level
48:38
there were changes but it had to be
addressed locally so that there was
community commitment and engagement
because again you were dealing with a
hard to reach population once they had
left the hospital and people were fairly
isolated so again if you're dealing with
a a carpenter residential worker very
49:08
small business there may be some kind of
local initiatives that that could be
looked at just a lot potential yeah I
think that that's definitely true and
and these the construction world tends
to be very tight and everybody knows
everybody
maybe that's were more prevalent here in
San Luis where they're in such a strong
Union environment but if individuals are
seeking work and they have to they have
49:40
to look for seek work for themselves
then they probably know the rest of the
system around and so you're right that
would be a good way to build a campaign
from within their own and that would
probably grow grow grow stronger and
more quickly and here again if we can
combine the efforts of not only the
individual workers but they're their
owners the employers and get them on
board
50:12
I think the buy-in here might be the
productivity and the cost savings and
you know improving the health and we've
tried the numbers game and I think we
need to continue to to show through the
numbers how a productive worker is a
healthy worker is more productive and
therefore we'll save money to the
employer I think we can need to continue
that to gather that data so we can can
make that take that case I think you've
50:43
summarized it really well and certainly
when it's by the numbers if we can show
that looking after your health improves
productivity and results and cost
savings
then we're more likely to get an
audience from employers and owners of
small business I think your passion has
certainly come through and and the
audience would be really interested in
51:16
what you do next so we have a question
related and I think we'll close with
this what other areas do you consider in
the continuity of your research to be
next so we are looking for ways to we're
looking to design interventions that we
believe the industry is more willing and
ready to accept off the shelf I think
51:49
there's a lot of good ideas out there
but I don't think many of these small
employers in particular have a clue
where to start
especially instance these are complex
systems you know a construction site is
complex and so you're saying that
handling loads is one of the most
important things we need to stop having
the workers do and we need to find other
means to transport those moves what does
52:19
a company need to have in order to
figure that out and most of them know
that's what they need to do they don't
have a clue how to get started and it
seems like such a simple thing but they
don't really know where to start so
we've created some materials to actually
get that process started and we'll skip
companies ideas and so I think we need
to find those interventions that help
solve the problems in a way that can be
taken off the shelf by our small workers
52:49
small companies and used right away
thank you so much in and I'm just gonna
close off this webinar for a plug for
that small business group Cree MSD in
partnership with the Ministry of Labour
in Ontario has just produced
new MSD prevention guideline and one of
the versions of that guideline is called
the QuickStart guide and it is totally
53:22
targeted at the small business operator
and I think there's some good
information there to kick off
intervention planning you know maybe six
months from now we'll have some case
studies on how that guide has been used
to help change some of the practice and
we'll look specifically at carpenters
and if we've been able to make any
53:56
inroads sounds great so I'd like to
thank everyone for joining us today and
yura from work wellness for hosting this
webinar just a wonderful wonderful a
collection of information thank you so
much
Thank You Catherine a huge thank you to
anne-marie for sharing your valuable
knowledge with us today and Catherine
for a wonderfully moderate in this
webinar a special thank you to our
audience as well for joining us