The effect of a transfer, lifting and repositioning (TLR) injury prevention program on musculoskeletal injury rates among direct care workers

Problem Statement: The burden of musculoskeletal injuries among workers is very high, particularly so in direct care workers involved in patient handling. Efforts to reduce injuries have shown mixed results. Strong evidence for intervention effectiveness is lacking. Specific Aims: The goal of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a patient handling injury prevention program implemented in the Saskatoon Health Region (SHR) comparing it with a non-randomized control group, Regina Qu’Appelle Health Region (RQHR), in a pre-post design. Injury rates, lost-time days, and claim costs were the outcomes of interest. Intervention: A Transfer, Lifting and Repositioning (TLR) program, consisting of engineering and administrative ergonomic controls, was implemented in SHR hospitals from 2002-2005. Methods: Data on time loss and non-time loss injuries, lost time days, and claims costs were collected from the SHR and RQHR for corresponding time periods one year pre and one year post-intervention. Age, length of service, profession, and sex were selected as covariates. Full Time Equivalents (FTE) data were collected for each time period. Univariate and multivariate Poisson regression were performed. Results: Rates for all injuries (number of injuries/100 FTE) dropped from 14.68 pre-intervention to 8.1 post-intervention. Control group all injury rates, while overall lower in absolute value, dropped to a lesser degree, from 9.29 to 8.4. Time loss injury rates decreased from 5.3 to 2.51 in the SHR, while they actually increased from 5.87 to 6.46 in the RQHR, for the same intervention periods. Poisson regression showed the greatest reduction in injury rate, both time loss (Rate ratio=0.48, 95% C.I: 0.34-0.68) and non-time loss (Rate Ratio=0.25, 95% C.I: 0.15-0.41) in the smaller long term care facility controlling for hospital size. Analysis of injury rates, incidence rate ratios, and incidence rate differences showed significant differences between the intervention and comparison group for all injuries and time loss injuries. Mean claim cost/injury decreased from $3906.20 to$2200.80 and mean time loss days/claim decreased from 35.87 days to 16.23 days for the SHR. Conclusions: The study provides evidence for the effectiveness of a multi-factor TLR program for direct-care health workers, and emphasizes their implementation, especially in smaller hospitals

EMPLACEMENT OF THE DADEVILLE COMPLEX OF THE SOUTHERNMOST INNER PIEDMONT WITHIN THE 7.5 MIN. CUSSETA QUADRANGLE, CHAMBERS COUNTY, ALABAMA: CHANNEL FLOW, KLIPPE KINEMATICS, OR OROGEN PARALLEL TRANSLATION

The Appalachian Mountains have a complex geologic history spanning three orogenic periods, the Taconic, the Acadian/Neoacadian, and Alleghanian orogenies. The Inner Piedmont of the Appalachian Mountains within Alabama contains two distinct lithologic complexes, the Dadeville Complex, and the Opelika Complex separated by the Stonewall Line. These complexes were formed during an arc-back arc fringing system during the Taconic orogeny and emplaced and recorded peak metamorphism during the Acadian orogeny. The Dadeville Complex is an allochthonous arc terrain built on extended Laurentian crust. The mode of transportation and accretion after formation is not well understood, which has implications for the role of modes of accretion during mountain building events. Three hypotheses of transportation of the Dadeville Complex have been proposed: 1. channel/crustal flow along the margin, 2. klippe thrust movement perpendicular to the margin and, 3. translation along margin-parallel shear zones. F1 folds with lineations trending N-S were created during peak metamorphism during the Acadian orogeny when shortening was occurring E-W synchronous with emplacement of migmatites within the Dadeville Complex and collision between the IP and DC. F2 folds are upright and trend E-W from N-S shortening, which may have occurred shortly after peak metamorphism, overprinting most F1 structures with lineations trending E. These results suggest that klippe kinematics with a component of orogen parallel translation, with modifications to these models, were the primary mode of translation for the Dadeville Complex. Additionally, the Stonewall Line shows evidence for being a weakly developed shear zone showing dip-slip motion within the Cusseta quadrangle

A Survey of the Vocational Status of Eighty-Eight Graduates of Phillis Wheatley High School, Houston, Texas

For the last seven years the leading business men and women and educators of Texas have been engaged in a very important matter, known as a study of the curriculum of the high schools in this state. It was the original purpose of this conference to acquaint as many state educators as possible with significant phases of Negro Education in the Southwest . It was believed that this information concerning Negro education would serve as a stimulant to greater interest and more constructed activities. The creators of the conference, with Principal W. R. Banks of Prairie View College as head, further aimed to stimulate attitude toward Negro schools and therefore secure a more scientific basis for a program of improvement. The problems growing out of the deficiency of organization, equipment and personnel of the Negro schools of Texas had attracted the attention of these educators. This attraction was such that the State Department of Education, with county and city superintendents, Negroes and white members of school faculties and representatives of philanthropic foundations responded readily to the first call to conference on Negro education, April 11, 1930. In the meeting of this conference a General survey was made of Negro Rural Schools, high schools and colleges. The conditions of these schools were of such that the members of the conference unanimously voted to repeat the conference the next year. Some said that the present high school curriculum is not suitable because it only prepares one to enter a college for liberal arts. We all know that we have at present, and for a long time to come, too many Negro men and women finishing college with only that which it takes to teach a few high school subjects. Knowing that the success of any nation or people depends very largely upon the occupational status of its individuals, it was advanced in one of the sessions of the vocational education group that many of the graduates who finish from the various high schools of Texas do not profit; because after finishing high school there is nothing for them to do in the line of making a living. It was made plain that in order for the graduates who ere finishing high school every year to get a suitable position for making a tolerable living the high schools must change their curriculum at least partly to that of a technical one instead of liberal arts. In an effort to clear out the real solution to the problem, an idea was advanced to make a vocational status survey of the high schools of Texas. After studying the situation it was found that a special revised survey would not only furnish the public with the solution or standing of the vocational status of the graduates of the various high schools but would furnish other material pertaining to personal guidance, family, parents, marriages and the like. All of this information will help to find out just what the children of our race and state should be taught in the high schools. Foot note- Proceedings of the Fifth Educational Conference. Bulletin July, 1934, Volume 26, No. 1. Published quarterly by Prairie View State College, Prairie View, Texas, pp. 8, Brief History of the Conference

A narrative inquiry into intercultural collaborations through activities in music education within a large overseas american school system

Music educators employed by the Large Overseas American School System (LOASS) at the center of this study live and work within the borders of allied host nations. Their students are dependents of military and civilian personnel stationed on bases situated on allied foreign soil. The researcher explores numerous perceptions of music educators and students who have engaged in intercultural collaboration, an unexplored activity occurring in the context of LOASS. Participants report on particular circumstances and issues surrounding activities in music education that include overseas host nation stakeholders. Contributions to the body of literature include re-envisioning the process through which one becomes intercultural, the role of antenarrative and what it comprises, as well as distinguishing unidirectional musical exchange from the activity of omnidirectional collaboration. Data sources include surveys, interviews, and historical evidence such as photos, school yearbooks and newspaper accounts. Survey results obtained from former LOASS music educators and students inform readers of the depth and breadth of the LOASS system, and the demographics of its participant pools. Interview data were manually coded, and revealed several emergent themes: motivations for initiating collaborative activities and what those activities look like; impact of collaborations on former music teachers, their students and host nation counterparts; barriers which inhibit such collaborations from taking place; strategies for overcoming those barriers, and what participants believe qualifies such collaborations as being successful. Yearbook and photographic relics provided an historical sense of overseas schools’ vision and legacy through writings and pictures archived over a 68-year continuum. In totum, these data comprise an antenarrative ‘story before the story’ from which participants’ narratives emerge and are presented in their own words. Framed within this context, the results provide a blueprint of how other members of the music education community can engage in such activities and successfully overcome any potential barriers that may inhibit them. Finally, a number of actionable alternative research methodologies are proffered to future researchers that may address peripheral issues regarding intercultural collaborations through activities in music education worldwide. In doing so, this study may encourage other like-minded music educators and their students to do the same

The New Debt Peonage in the Era of Mass Incarceration

In 1867, Congress passed legislation that forbid the practices of debt peonage. However, the law was circumvented after the period of Reconstruction in the south and debt peonage became central to the expansion of southern agriculture through sharecropping and industrialization through convict leasing, practices that forced debtors into new forms of coerced labor. Debt peonage was presumable ended in the 1940s by the Justice Department. But was it? The era of mass incarceration has institutionalized a new form of debt peonage through which racialized poverty is governed, mechanisms of social control are reconstituted, and freedom is circumscribed. In this paper, we examine the mechanism of the “new debt peonage” and its consequences in the lives of 30 men, mostly African American, released from an alternative incarceration facility in Cleveland, Ohio. Debt for these men included court fines and fees, restitution costs, motor vehicle fines and reinstatement fees, parole and probation supervision fees, child support debt, as well as education and medical debt. Median debt at the time of community reentry for these 30 men was $9,700. These debts affected men’s strategies for community reentry and impeded community reintegration, and it imposed a new form of labor subordination and social control

Burning and Burying in Connecticut: Are Regional Solutions to Solid Waste Disposal Equitable?

To comply with federal legislation, states throughout the country are replacing old town dumps with a regional system for municipal solid waste disposal.This system includes trash-to-energy incinerators and ash landfills as well as recycling and reduction facilities. While these new types of facilities are expected to be environmentally safer, they have concentrated the disposal process of waste generated throughout the state in fewer locations. State leaders champion the use of newer, cleaner disposal methods, while local community groups complain that they have become the dumping grounds for the state. This is the first environmental equity study to examine whether these newer types of facilities are being disproportionately located in racial/ethnic minority or low-income Connecticut neighborhoods. Our analysis indicates that regional facilities are located nearer to neighborhoods with high percentages of minority and poor residents. Employing multivariate techniques, we found that when we control for other variables, the percentage of racial/ethnic minorities remains a predictor of distance to these regional facilities, while poverty and income do not