Sind Alter und Geschlecht Risikofaktoren für arbeitsbedingte Muskel-Skelett-Erkrankungen an Arbeitsplätzen mit gleichzeitiger körperlicher und geistiger Belastung?

19/02/2020 to 18/02/2021

issues of the musculoskeletal system that are caused or aggravated
by work. WRMSDs affect workers individual helath, health care
systems and economy. Risk factors associated with WRMSDs can be
divided into physical, psychological and personal factors. Little
attention has been devoted to the interaction of concurrent risk
factors, although theoretical concepts of how WRMSD may develop
mention the interactive nature of these risk factors. With regard to the
demographic changes and the aging work force in western societies,
concepts for maintaining the health of older employees and women
are one great challenge for the coming years to be addressed by
ergonomic workplace design and workplace interventions. Therefore
this application addresses the following two aspects: 1. The
simultaneous occurrence of physical and psychological risk factors for
developing WRMSDs has attained limited attention in the scientific
literature, so far. 2. The specific needs of employees with different age
and sex/gender when developing jobs that do not lead to WRMSDs
have received limited attention, in spite of a major change in the age
and gender structure of the working population. The requested
support will be used for the initiation of an international collaboration
between Dr. Benjamin Steinhilber (Germany) and Prof. Pascal
Madeleine (Denmark) and Dr. Afshin Samani (Denmark) who already
did preliminary work in the targeted research area. The collaboration
on the effects of concurrent physical and psychological exposures on
the risk for WRMSDs and the moderating role of aging and
sex/gender, would contribute to better understand this complex and
mostly unexplored research topic. As collaboration-building activities
an exploratory workshop and one trip abroad are planed. The
workshop will be held in Tübingen (September 2020). Within this
workshop, the participants will present results of their scientific work
to provide a basis for the discussion. During scheduled work phases a
SWOT analysis will be conducted in order to explore possibilities of a
concrete collaboration. In November 2020 a one-week trip abroad will
take place where Benjamin Steinhilber will travel to Denmark. In the
end of this week an idea/research question, a schedule for preparing
a research proposal and methodological considerations with respect
to a joint project will be available. In addition, Prof. Svend Erik
Mathiassen from Sweden (University of Gävle) will be integrated who
is an outstanding expert in the field of work-related musculoskeletal
disorders. With his support and the fact that he already collaborated with both research groups, this initiation of an international
collaboration between Germany and Denmark addressing a highly
relevant research topic in the area of occupational and ergonomic
research has great potential for resulting in a successful and
sustaining international collaboration.