There comes a point where 'repeating what doesn't work' needs reviewing?

The occupational health of production-line workers has always come secondary to productivity itself but, after thirty years of presenteeism in the majority, 58% of DSE Operators, just maybe time to review why they are consistently 20% less productive?

It has, sort of, reached the point where blaming the operator has been exhausted over the years as, it is now a "known known" that it is the display screen equipment, I know that is blasphemy but, it just happens to be the evidence based truth having, Sherlock like, eliminated everything else in the "Chain of causation"......

So, just in case you were wondering, this is why and what the BSI (British Standards Institute) 2019 ISO 30071.1. is all about.

It took the WHO to scale of the visual repetitive stress injuries in DSE operators Globally, now also presenting in 50% more children in education, to recognise the critical mass of this particular pandemic in the 21st Century acknowledging the visual health burden of age diverse "binocular vision loss", predicted to affect 50% of the worlds population by 2050 is, in fact, also man-made!

The delay in recognising the primary contributor to the pandemic in MSD's has simply been turning a blind-eye, pun intended, to the primary operator-equipment interface the visual system and brain presuming, the operators common repetitive stress injuries were solely restricted to larger muscle groups and neurology than those in the much smaller VISUAL SYSTEM is required to sustain "convergence and accommodation all day, everyday".

Needless to say, without anything more than a sadly tokenistic ineffective intervention, the 20-20-20 rule for visual breaks, even during the first hour on-screen, anything longer than an hour is predictably going to cause eye-strain and, as the majority "carry-on regardless" for hours on end little wonder the visual repetitive stress has been named, euphemistically CVS (Computer Vision Syndrome) or Screen Fatigue although, the range of stress related adaptations come under the medical heading of "Asthenopia".

Not a lot of people know this but, there has been a Validated "Risk Assessment for Asthenopia" out there for a while but, that incurs risk in and of itself for employers if, the operators find out then, we may see the same tsunami of Disability Claims as currently exploding in the USA as DSE operators are working from home.

So, as we, the British stiff upper-lispers, are going to adopt some self-advocacy it is, most likely, going to be a question of joining the "Self-Preservation Society" at the S.M.A.R.T. Foundation UK.

Either self-administrating your own subjective and/or objective DSE "Colour Contrast Validation" session using Abilitynet's "My Computer My Way" or screenrisk.com "Display Screen Optimiser" Or wait for the outcome of the new 2020 EU MSD Research ?

The overall prevalence of work-related MSDs over this period has NOT decreased despite the various strategies and policies adopted for MSD prevention over many years.

For example, in 2007, EU-OSHA ran the campaign ‘Lighten the load’, which sought to promote an integrated management approach to work-related MSDs. This campaign emphasised that employers, employees and government should work together to tackle MSDs and help to maximise the retention of workers with MSDs.

The current project aims to provide information for the next EU-OSHA campaign, which will begin in 2020 (and will focus on the prevention of MSDs), by:

? improving knowledge on new and emerging risks and trends in relation to factors that contribute to work-related MSDs and to identify the related challenges;

? identifying gaps in current strategies for tackling work-related MSDs, at both policy and workplace levels; ? investigating the effectiveness and quality of workplace interventions and risk assessment approaches;

? identifying new approaches for more effective MSD prevention.

Context of the project...........

Definition of MSDs Musculoskeletal disorders — or MSDs — is an umbrella term used to describe pain and discomfort in the muscles of the body, in this context focused on the back and the upper and lower limbs. For the purpose of this project, the following definition is used:

‘work-related MSDs are defined as impairments of bodily structures such as muscles, joints, tendons, ligaments, nerves, bones or a localised blood circulation system that are caused or aggravated primarily by the performance of work and by the effects of the immediate environment where the work is carried out’ (EU-OSHA, 2008).

https://osha.europa.eu/en/publications/work-related-musculoskeletal-disorders-research-practice-what-can-be-learnt/view