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- 2006-03-20 17:34:52 作者：twcalm 来源：iie 浏览次数：0 网友评论条
- Safety first
Posted Feb. 28, 2006
Tom Leamon, Ph.D., P.E., director of the Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety since 1991, will retire from the post later this year. He will be succeeded by Y. Ian Noy, Ph.D., P.E., an industrial engineer and certified professional ergonomist. Leamon discussed what he considers to be the main issue in workplace safety and his top achievements at the Institute.
IIE: What was the top safety issue of your 15-year tenure?
Leamon: The top issue was undoubtedly the lack of attention paid to traumatic injuries that are all too often seen as “carelessness,” “an accident,” or even “an act of God.” The constant issue is to determine how American workers who were seriously injured came by those injuries. We do not advocate taking resources from occupational disease efforts, but we should more properly allocate many more resources to the real issue – traumatic injuries.
IIE: What research issue that you were involved with do you believe affected the largest number of workers?
Leamon: The issue of musculoskeletal overexertion and the resulting outcome of low back pain was, is, and will remain a major issue. My interest lies in determining where the actual injuries are occurring and then investigating the major causes – namely slips, trips, and falls. Besides being a research challenge, it is a very complex issue involving human behavior, cognition, muscular control, lighting, and load carrying. Many people just focus entirely on the friction between footwear and surface.
IIE: What was your goal in getting universities signed up to work with the Institute?
Leamon: It is not possible for a single research institute to tackle all of the issues surrounding occupational injury. The establishment of the alliances was simply to increase the size of the pie. I wanted to train an ever-expanding group of international researchers to focus their talents and resources on the problems of occupational injury. In 2005, we collaborated with authors from 68 universities and other institutions from around the world on our scientific papers.
IIE: What achievements are you most proud of at the Institute?
Leamon: The success we have had of inviting researchers from around the world to join us to tackle theoretical issues on topics such as return to work, slipping and falling, and occupational injury and epidemiology. We are striving to determine the real burden injuries place on workers, their families, community, and the nation. It is not often one gets paid for trying to make a difference to real people.
Noy said the most pressing issue is that ergonomics “is not yet viewed as an essential aspect of safe workplaces.”
”Considerable progress has been made in recent years as ergonomic interventions are being implemented to address identified risks,” he said. “However, the extent of ergonomics implementation throughout the design, development, and operating cycles of work systems is not commensurate with the staggering social and economic burden of workplace injury.
”Greater involvement of ergonomics is not only critical for worker safety and well-being, but it can lead to marked improvements in productivity, efficiency, and quality.”
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