“Ergonomics affects virtually every aspect of the safety profession from machine use to construction safety to office set-up,” said ASSE Central Florida Chapter President Jeff Spackman. “As an ASSE chapter we do everything possible to be of the greatest value to our members who are committed to protecting people, property and the environment. We felt holding a development conference on this very important topic would be of the greatest value to the greatest number of our members.”
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), musculoskeletal disorders refer to injuries or illnesses affecting the connective tissues of the body such as muscles, nerves, tendons, joints, cartilage or spinal discs and accounted for 29 percent of all workplace injuries requiring time away from work in 2007. In addition, BLS noted that there were 335,390 MSDs in 2007 requiring a median of 9 days away from work, two days more than the medial for all days away from work cases. However, in 2007 musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) involving days away from work declined by 21,770 cases from 2006.
The conference will include two general sessions and four concurrent sessions covering topics on office ergonomics; workstation design; ergonomics in construction and general industry; workers’ compensation issues around ergonomic injuries/illnesses; body techniques for ergonomic injury prevention; human factors/design; and rehabilitation after an ergonomic injury or illness.
Speakers at the ASSE Central Florida Chapter PDC will include keynote speaker Isabel Perry, Ph.D., president of TheSafetyDoctor.com Inc. Other speakers include: Daniel McCune, safety director at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University; Eric Austin, CSP, senior loss control consultant at Amerisure Insurance; Ronald Porter, director at Back School of Atlanta; ASSE Region IV Vice President Michael Belcher, CSP, director of safety at DS Waters of America LP; and Sally Darlin of CORA. In addition, there will be speakers from OSHA and the University of South Florida.
The Central Florida Chapter PDC is co-sponsored by ASSE’s Ergonomics Branch, part of the ASSE Industrial Hygiene Practice Specialty, along with the American Association of Occupational Health Nurses’ (AAOHN) Florida Section, ASSE’s Women in Safety Engineering (WISE) Common Interest Group, the Alliance for Central Florida Safety (ACFS), Risk and Insurance Management Society (RIMS) and the American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) Florida Section.
For more information or to register for the ASSE Central Florida Chapter one-day ergonomics conference, visit http://centralfl.asse.org. To learn more about ergonomics issues, visit ASSE’s Ergonomics branch Web site at http://www.asse.org/practicespecialties/ergonomics/ or go to ASSE’s Ergo Resources Project at http://www.asse.org/practicespecialties/bosc/ergo_links.php.