Study protocol title: a prospective cohort study of low back pain

BACKGROUND: Few prospective cohort studies of workplace low back pain (LBP) with quantified job physical exposure have been performed. There are few prospective epidemiological studies for LBP occupational risk factors and reported data generally have few adjustments for many personal and psychosocial factors. METHODS/DESIGN: A multi-center prospective cohort study has been incepted to quantify risk factors for LBP and potentially develop improved methods for designing and analyzing jobs. Due to the subjectivity of LBP, six measures of LBP are captured: 1) any LBP, 2) LBP ≥ 5/10 pain rating, 3) LBP with medication use, 4) LBP with healthcare provider visits, 5) LBP necessitating modified work duties and 6) LBP with lost work time. Workers have thus far been enrolled from 30 different employment settings in 4 diverse US states and performed widely varying work. At baseline, workers undergo laptop-administered questionnaires, structured interviews, and two standardized physical examinations to ascertain demographics, medical history, psychosocial factors, hobbies and physical activities, and current musculoskeletal disorders. All workers’ jobs are individually measured for physical factors and are videotaped. Workers are followed monthly for the development of low back pain. Changes in jobs necessitate re-measure and re-videotaping of job physical factors. The lifetime cumulative incidence of low back pain will also include those with a past history of low back pain. Incident cases will exclude prevalent cases at baseline. Statistical methods planned include survival analyses and logistic regression. DISCUSSION: Data analysis of a prospective cohort study of low back pain is underway and has successfully enrolled over 800 workers to date

Visualizing Innovative Uses of Technology and Devices for Engaging College Students in Active Learning

This session will provide attendees with several new ideas and examples for using older and newer types of technology and devices in order to appeal to the visual learner in every student. As described by Felder & Brent (2005), A goal of instruction should be to equip students with the skills associated with every learning style category, regardless of the students\u27 personal preferences, since they will need all of those skills to function effectively as professionals. Although we are educators and many of our doctoral students aspire to go into academia, our primary focus in the course of our training was most likely not education, per se, but engineering, psychology, human factors, or some other discipline. It is often the case that subject matter experts do not also formally acquire expertise in teaching methods. According to Wankat & Oreovicz (1993)(pg 1), The majority of engineering professors have never had a formal course in education. Some people do have natural gifts for teaching, but Wankat & Oreovicz (1993)(pg 1) believe that It is possible to learn how to teach well. This belief, as well as the belief that educators want to teach well, are primary motivators for organizing this session, which has been designed to provide current and aspiring instructors with some additional knowledge and methods for enhancing their pedagogic skills