PR Newswire
WASHINGTON, Jan. 10, 2024
Survey among more than 50 companies shows majority have strong safety cultures, more focus needed on musculoskeletal disorder risk reduction and innovation
WASHINGTON, Jan. 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Musculoskeletal disorders, or MSDs, are the most common workplace injury, costing U.S. businesses in the private sector nearly $17 billion a year, according to the Liberty Mutual Workplace Safety Index. Recognizing the impact these injuries have on workers and businesses, the National Safety Council, with funding from Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), established the groundbreaking MSD Solutions Lab in 2021 to solve workplace MSDs. As a hallmark initiative of the lab, the MSD Pledge was launched in June 2022 and many of the world's leading employers have joined the global effort to reduce this pervasive safety challenge. To help monitor progress along this journey of transforming workplace safety and improving the lives of millions of workers, NSC developed the MSD Solutions Index, an annual benchmarking survey, and today released the inaugural findings in the MSD Solutions Index Pledge Community Report.
The MSD Solutions Index provides MSD Pledge members with individualized feedback on areas of success and opportunity for improvement related to their current MSD reduction efforts and to help identify broader industry trends impacting MSD prevention efforts. Developed in partnership with academic and industry experts, the index is also intended to hold organizations accountable to their three main pledge commitments of advancing MSD risk reduction, innovation and collaboration, and safety culture.
"What gets measured gets managed, which is why collecting workplace data is critical to helping organizations mitigate MSDs," said Paul Vincent, executive vice president of workplace practice at NSC. "Through the MSD Solutions Index, not only does it provide direct, tangible takeaways for each pledging organization, but it offers key insights that can be applied across industries to improve MSD prevention. Addressing the most common workplace injury on a global scale has never been done before and initiatives like this help our entire safety community be better positioned to create safer outcomes for millions of workers worldwide."
Starting in December 2022 and concluding in June 2023, 52 MSD Pledge members – representing the manufacturing, professional, transportation and warehousing, healthcare, utilities, and several other industries – completed the 46-question MSD Solutions Index survey. Organizations received an overall index result, as well as results for the three pledge commitment subsections, that fell into one of five results categories representing MSD prevention maturity: novice, reactive, advancing, proactive and innovating. Major insights from the MSD Solutions Index included:
While the report highlighted several areas of success among the MSD Pledge community – including tracking MSD indicators, involving frontline workers to make improvements, building greater workplace communication, and knowledge or use of MSD technology solutions – it also noted some areas of opportunity, such as improving methods of tracking MSDs, quantifying psychosocial risk factors, continually monitoring and assessing physical risk factors, sharing best practices outside of an organization, and understanding the workforce's unique needs. In addition, the report outlined several steps and actions organizations should take to achieve impactful MSD programs, including:
The MSD Solutions Index is one of several initiatives led by NSC to achieve its goal of preventing MSDs before they start. Recently, the Council introduced the next evolution of its industry-first call-to-action to transform workplace safety, the MSD Pledge 2.0. To learn more about these efforts, visit nsc.org/msd.
About the National Safety Council
The National Safety Council is America's leading nonprofit safety advocate – and has been for 110 years. As a mission-based organization, we work to eliminate the leading causes of preventable death and injury, focusing our efforts on the workplace and roadways. We create a culture of safety to not only keep people safer at work, but also beyond the workplace so they can live their fullest lives.
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SOURCE National Safety Council