Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
• The complex and multifactorial nature of the processes leading to
pain, justifying a multidimensional approach of the prevention
intervention. This intervention should cover the entirety of the work
situation and the company, in order to allow envisioning a simul-
taneous, coordinated action on constraints and their determinants
(Dempsey, 2006; Kennedy et al., 2010; Laing et al., 2007).
• The relation to work, justifying interventions in the real-world work
environment (Da Costa and Vieira, 2009; Ijzelenberg et al., 2004;
Ostergren et al., 2005; Punnett and Wegman, 2004; Wells, 2009).
The constant change of work situations (flexibility, reorganizations,
low job security, modes of production management, etc.) (Dugué, 2006)
is such that the benefits of technical interventions aiming to reduce the
physical constraints of the work situation are increasingly short-lived.
This new feature of contemporary work obviously leads to ergonomics
readjusting its scope out of necessity. What is the return on investment of
investing in ergonomics, if its contribution is limited to designing work
situations whose characteristics evolve increasingly quickly? Already,
Kuorinka (1998) emphasized the need for 'quick and flexible strategies' as
a direct consequence of the constant changes of production environments,
to improve the prevention of MSDs.
The context of the economy of knowledge described by Foray (2009)
might, today, foster a renewed interest for integrating human factors in
the management of organizations, where the worker - including his sub-
jectivity - is apprehended as the primary resource (Lièvre and Coutarel,
2013). Indeed, the system used for the economic valuation of work influ-
ences the way in which ergonomic recommendations and prescriptions
are received, as well as their very nature (Hubault and Bourgeois, 2004).
Current and future epistemological challenges
It remains quite difficult, even today, to ensure that the results obtained
through a developmental approach to the prevention of MSDs are recog-
nized by the international community. The main obstacle to this seems, to
us, to be of an epistemological nature (Coutarel et al., 2005): in the face of
an epistemology where the dominant view lies with the control of factors,
complex interventions (Champagne et al., 2009) that rely on an epistemol-
ogy of complexity find it difficult to exist. As evidence, one need only
examine the work that is mentioned in reviews of the literature on the
subject, and notably the selection criteria that are used: randomization,
control group and statistical validity (Driessen et al., 2010, 2011; Rivilis
et al., 2008; Roquelaure, 2008; Tuncel et al., 2008).
