Introduction

The goal of this training is to provide you, the mine safety director/supervisor, with an understanding of how to identify and reduce risk factors that may lead to cumulative injuries or work-related musculoskeletal disorders (MSD). Along the way, you will discover what ergonomics is and how it can help you take a more proactive approach to reducing these injuries. You will also learn what risk factors contribute to these injuries and why it is important to reduce your workers' exposure to these risk factors. You will understand more about what musculoskeletal injuries are, how they progress, what causes them and what controls you can use to reduce exposures. The last section of this training is focused on interactive case studies. You will identify risk factors as you view workers performing their jobs.

We hope this training provides you with a reason to stop waiting for your cumulative injuries to appear and start targeting the risk factors that contribute to the injuries. The idea is to have a more proactive approach to resolving your injury problem - target and eliminate the risk factor and you eliminate the injury.