This paper describes the development of the Workplace Ergonomic Risk Assessment (WERA) for investigating the physical risk factor associated with work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs). The initial development of WERA tool involved the following procedures: (1) first stage, development of WERA prototype from literature review, (2) second stage, evaluation of the psychometric properties including (a) validity trials and (b) reliability and usability trials. In the validity trials, the relationship of the individual WERA body part scores to the development of pain or discomfort is statistically significant for the wrist, shoulder and back regions. It shows that the WERA assessment provided a good indication of work-related musculoskeletal disorders which might be reported as pain, ache or discomfort in the relevant body regions. In the reliability trials, the results of inter-observer reliability shows that moderate agreement among the observers while from the feedback questionnaire survey about the usability of WERA tool, all participants including expert and management teams agreed that the prototype of WERA tool was easy and quick to use, applicable to workplace assessment for the wide range of job/task and valuable at work. It was confirmed that there was no need of training required to do WERA assessment. Therefore, the WERA assessment has been designed for easy and quick use, and for those who are trained to use it do not need previous skills in observation techniques although this would be an advantage. As WERA is a pen and paper technique that can be used without any special equipment, WERA assessment can be done in any space of workplaces without disruption to the task that have been observed.
BACKGROUND: In Malaysia, surveillance of fatal occupational injuries is fragmented. We therefore analyzed an alternative data source from Malaysia's Social Security organization, the Pertubuhan Keselamatan Sosial (PERKESO).
METHODS: We conducted a secondary data analysis of the PERKESO database comprised of 7 million employees from 2002 to 2006.
RESULTS: Overall, the average annual incidence was 9.2 fatal occupational injuries per 100,000 workers. During the 5-year period, there was a decrease in the absolute number of fatal injuries by 16% and the incidence by 34%. The transportation sector reported the highest incidence of fatal injuries (35.1/100,000), followed by agriculture (30.5/100,000) and construction (19.3/100,000) sectors. Persons of Indian ethnicity were more likely to sustain fatal injuries compared to other ethnic groups.
CONCLUSIONS: Government and industry should develop rigorous strategies to detect hazards in the workplace, especially in sectors that continuously record high injury rates. Targeted interventions emphasizing worker empowerment coupled with systematic monitoring and evaluation is critical to ensure success in prevention and control measures.
Matched MeSH terms: Construction Industry/statistics & numerical data*