Published in the December 2009 Coal USA Magazine
AAT is made up of management training for program leaders (identified as trainers, supervisors or labor representatives), an instructor’s guide and a seven-module training program with a newsletter and safety talk guide for each. The program is designed so that it can be given either on an individual basis or as part of a longer training session.
Because aging is a fact of life, and mine workers will thus experience changes from their first day as a red hat until the day they retire, effectively leveraging the resource of an experienced worker is important, according to NIOSH researchers William Porter, Launa Mallett, Diana Schwerha, Sean Gallagher, Janet Torma-Krajewski, and Lisa Steiner.
To do that, there needs to be an appreciation of the physical changes that occur with age as well as the methods that can be used to reduce the potential for injury.
“Aging workers may not necessarily have a higher injury risk overall; however, the effects of a musculoskeletal injury on older workers may be more extreme,” the group noted. “MSHA data shows that not only does the percentage of MSIs increase when workers are over age 30, so does the number of days lost per injury.”
After leader level training is completed – a phase which introduces management to issues in general level training – each of the nine modules can be completed in the field and in a short period of time, often without the need for a computer.
The first session outlines the reasons why normal age-related changes in individuals can affect health, safety and overall work performance.
From that point, each of the next five modules will take on a specific physical issue as dictated by NIOSH’s research, including vision, hearing, attention and memory, musculoskeletal system issues such as strains and sprains, and lower back pain, known as one of the industry’s top causes of disability.
The seventh module is work capacity and endurance. It looks at ways workers can reduce workload to prevent serious injuries as well as other modifications to accommodate age changes. Module eight tackles slips, trips and falls, which can occur at any age but happen at a greater rate in older workers.
The ninth and final module, identifying high-risk tasks, provides a collection of work task scenarios for trainees to evaluate that include age-related changes.
“Protecting the safety and health of aging workers requires matching the demands of the job to worker capabilities,” the researchers pointed out.
“This means reducing or eliminating risk factors for injuries, such as heavy lifting, awkward postures, static postures, repetitive movements, and/or vibration exposures [and] in other cases, it may mean improving visibility or streamlining processes.
“Designing jobs to accommodate the changing capabilities of older workers will not only reduce injury risk for older workers, it will have the added benefit of protecting younger employees as well.”
Once training has been completed, the NIOSH researchers encourage a final post-work phase to evaluate the training that has been completed.
“This step is important in establishing the effectiveness of the training. If the training was not well received, then the champion (organizer of training) can figure out ways to make the training more interesting to the trainees [and] if the training was a success, then [he/she] will have a way of documenting the success and may want to provide that information to management to validate the investment in this training and future training packages.”
The research group noted that the discussion of aging in mining did not apply to just workers over 55. In fact, age-related changes can start as early as the 20s. Everyone is aging and therefore will see some impact on health or safety at some point.
According to NIOSH data, 40.7% of the general workforce is 45 or older and 52.3% of the mining workforce is 45 or older. Additionally, while the average workforce age in 2006 was 40.8, the median age for coal mining was 46.6 (versus 43.2 in metal and 44.0 in non metal/quarry).
The training is provided in Microsoft Word or PowerPoint format and as a PDF, and can be modified by mine management to be site-specific. For more information, contact NIOSH at http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/mining/.
