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Risk Mapping  image1

Mapping
Surveys
Worker-centred research
Organising for safety
Union training
Case histories
Photogallery

 

Blank body maps

 

DO-IT-YOURSELF RESEARCH

Hazards magazine has championed the use of worker -friendly health and safety research in the workplace. This do-it-yourself resource section contains information on participatory research techniques and on trade union safety training, education and action.

Mapping


Hazards detective - interactive tool
Listen to your body talk - many workplace diseases and symptoms can be caused you work, from bright green urine to curling fingers and floppy ankles. The Hazards detective online guide helps you make the links the doctors and the safety officers miss.

Worked over - interactive tool
Problems outside of work can arise from the problems inside work. From fatigue to depression, drug use to violence, the Hazards worked over online guide helps you examine the 24/7/365 hazards that can come with the job.

Worked over
This Hazards World mapping factsheet focuses on the impact of the job on your whole life.
Hazards 75, July-Sept 2001, centrepages (pdf)

Surveying the damage
The Hazards guide to do-it-yourself workplace health and safety research - because unions offer the best chance of uncovering workplace ill-health and finding working solutions.
Hazards 71, July-September 2000, centrepages

Body of evidence
Body mapping can unearth the health hazards in your workplace.
Hazards 61 Jan-March 1998, centrepages (pdf)

Mapping out work hazards
Risk maps let workers look at what they work with and any physical. chemical, biological or pyschosocial problems that might arise when doing the job.
Hazards 60, October-Dec 1997, centrepages (pdf)

USA
UCLA-LOSH
• Bodymapping factsheets English and Spanish versions
• Spanish language bodymapping factsheet, Haciendo un Mapa del Cuerpo. [pdf]
• Worksite Mapping, Mapeo del Lugar de Traba. [pdf]
• Risk mapping, Factores de Riesgos en Su Trabajo. [pdf]

Britain
Radiographers map out work problems
Radiographers’ union SoR is urging its members to start mapping their work-related aches and pains. A new guidance document from the healthcare union is encouraging its safety representatives to take up body mapping.
Body mapping: A resource for SoR health and safety representatives [pdf]

Using maps to identify health and safety problems, Dorothy Wigmore, Labor Notes, Number 332, November 2006.

Britain
Telling where it hurts
Body mapping guide from UK shopworkers' union USDAW. Telling where it hurts

Britain
Mapping out solutions to workplace slips and trips
Retail union Usdaw is urging its safety reps to use risk maps to tackle the problem of workplace slips and trips, which account for a third of all reported major injuries.
Risk mapping for slips and trips guide [pdf]. [November 2004]

OHS Rep
Guide to workplace mapping from Victorian Trades Hall Council, Australia

Australia
Australia Asia Worker Links (AAWL) bodymapping guide. Includes a photogallery.

Epi info and Epi map software can be downloaded free from the US Centers for Disease Control

Geographical Information Systems
University of Edinburgh web guide to GIS.

Mapping training
EPMU, New Zealand's largest trade union, used Hazards resources to train union reps in DIY research techniques.

body mapping
risk mappingmore about EPMU

Barefoot researching
The manual Barefoot Research: A Worker's Manual for Organising On Work Security has been developed to help empower workers to increase their level of control over their own work situations, to protect their health and well being, and to improve their level of basic security.
click here for [quite large] pdf files

Now available free on CD
Risks 73, 28 September 2002

Body mapping for workplace health
By drawing simple maps of their body or their workplace, workers can record, in a visual form, their health problems, work hazards and overall work environment. This helps them to share their knowledge of problems and solutions - and it gives unions some very useful information.
Peter Kirby, Labour Education, vol.126, April 2002 (pdf)

Participatory research
Workers' Health International Newsletter (WHIN) feature and reports on body mapping, from USA, Canada and Brazil
WHIN 53, January-June 1998, pages 16-18
(pdf)

United Steelworkers of America (USWA) Canada
"Women of steel" workplace mapping guide

Training for safety reps in the use of body mapping
TUC Training Initiative Project. Version 2 updated October 2001. Peter Kirby. TUC, Congress House, Great Russell St., London WC1B 3LS or

Map out a safer job
The Observer
report on the initiative introduced to the UK by Hazards magazine.
Observer, July 29, 2001

Body mapping works!
Members of UK union USDAW report their positive experiences: Body mapping provides route to safer workplace


Surveys


UCU inspections guides

Membership surveys
UK union UNISON's guide to membership surveys.

Inspection guide
This UNISON guide for health and safety reps includes information, a checklist and draft questionnaire on how to conduct a health and safety inspection.
UNISON health and safety inspections at work (pdf)

Inspection list
UK union NUT safety representatives' inspection list.
NUT safety inspections guide
NUT safety representatives' inspection checklist

Safety reps use "risk filter" to spot RSI risks at work
TUC spotting the risks of RSI guide.

Workload survey guide
A guide to onducting a survey of your membership to better understand the causes of workload problems from Canadian union CUPE.

How to do a Workload Survey • Overwork/workload report including workplace questionnaire [pdf]CUPE two-minute stress survey



Worker-centred research


Britain: Union rep designs drivers’ body map
Novel techniques to identify work-related health problems are putting union safety reps in the driving seat, says George Partridge, chair of the Northern TUC Health and Safety Forum. He is highlighting the case of a member of the forum has designed his own drivers’ body map.
Risks 220, 20 August 2005
Northern TUC body map [pdf]

 

Usdaw charts back pain at work
Shopwork union Usdaw has made its 'Charting back pain' guide available online. The guide highlights 'the use of a powerful tool called 'body mapping' which can be used to develop members' awareness of the health and safety concerns in their work situation and to identify practical solutions to any problems they face.' As well as details of back pain problems in shopworkers, the report includes a 'how-to' guide to body mapping at work.

Usdaw guide Related materials: Online mapping resource and photogallery of Usdaw and other bodymapping sessions at work

Research for truth?
How traditional methods of research may be bad for your health.
Hazards 65, Jan-March 1999

Lay, worker and community epidemiology - A new approach to documenting community health
Public perception of hazards from pesticides is frequently not matched by professional studies which fail to link health to specific chemicals used near communities. In this article, Dr. Andrew Watterson explains a new approach to the science of epidemiology and shows methods being developed to help communities and professionals work together for more accurate assessments of cause and effect.
Pesticides News, No.30, December 1995

Unions produce better health studies
Occupational health researchers say active union participation was key to the success of a study of skin problems in print workers.
Risks 66, 10 August 2002  • The prevalence of occupational dermatitis in the UK printing industry, Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 59, pages 487-492, 2002 [abstract]



Organising for safety


Organise!
So you know the job is dangerous. What now?
Hazards factsheet 74 (pdf)

Participation means unions
Hazards article issue 66



Union training


Online safety training manual
The Asian Workers for Occupational Health, Safety and Environment Institute has produced a training programme including: The OHSE approach; trainers' manual; timetable; handouts; overhead transparencies; and role plays.
Trainer training in occupational health, safety and environment program webpage

Courses, courses
Trade union safety rep training is going from strength to strength in the UK.
Hazards 75, July-Sept 2001 (pdf)

What makes a rep work?
Government backed research finds trade union safety rep training is so good it saves lives
Hazards 75, July-Sept 2001 (pdf)



Case histories


The impact of a worker health study on working conditions
US Workers' health study results in new limits on houseworkers' workload

CANADA Millions in foundry asbestos disease payouts
Successful claims for former Holmes workers reached Canadian $11 million (£4.5 million). CAW worked with ex-workers, their families and top Canadian union health and safety campaigners Margie Keith and Jim Brophy to use body and risk mapping and old photos to reconstruct conditions at the long-closed foundry.

Background Document (word)

Casino workers health warning
Long hours and poor working conditions are threatening the health of casino workers, a GMB report says.
BBC News, 24 December, 2001

Casino worker driven research
A 2001 report in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine concluded that casino workers are the best people to spot work-related health problems and their solutions, adding that the study “demonstrates the effectiveness of a worker-driven, participatory consultation."
American Journal of Industrial Medicine, Volume 39, Issue 1, 2001. Pages: 42-51

Mapping breast cancer
UK campaign organisation Women's Environmental Network use mapping software to identify breast cancer clusters in the UK.
Putting breast cancer on the map projectReview 2003

Toxic hotspots
US-based Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition map environmental air and water pollution caused by the microelectronics industry./
SVTC Toxic hotspots
pages

 

Hazards web editor: Jawad Qasrawi
Hazards editor: Rory O'Neill

To order Hazards resources click here

Thanks to Diane Factor, Margaret Keith, Jim Brophy, Dorothy Wigmore, Susan Moir, Linda Delp, Pete Kirby, Mike Merritt, Anthony Pizzino, Mick Holder, Owen Tudor, Eve Barker and The Russell Press for their assistance in the preparation of these resources.


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