Phase 1 
Anchoring in the stakeholders’ needs and realities

Objectives

The purpose of this phase is also to provide the researchers with practical knowledge and increase their knowledge of the workplaces. It has two steps.

1. The aim of the first step is a better understanding of the workplaces facing problems, specifying with partners the most significant needs, identifying potential research objectives, carrying out a review of existing knowledge by means of statistical surveillance, a literature review, and strategic watch. The accomplishment of this first step allows the researchers to develop a research project that is relevant for the workplaces, consistent with the IRSST priorities, and achievable from the standpoint of the research.

The safe driving of lift trucks Understanding stability factors is a key element to prevent rollover of lift trucks used in many locations. To this effect, meetings were held between researchers and training specialists to identify the type of research that could be elaborated and conducted to address the specific need of stakeholders involved in the training of lift truck drivers. The objective is to develop efficient training approaches that will be supported by appropriate tools.

2. The second step consists of ensuring the correspondence between the intent of the research and the needs and issues previously defined during the first step. This essentially involves exchanges between researchers and partners who can become for example members of a follow-up committee. In addition, this second step should better prepare stakeholders for subsequent steps, including those of adaptation of the results and dissemination in the workplaces.

Risk prevention in household waste collection Household waste collection operations involve known risks and others that must be identified and documented. Following a request by a safety association to have a shield developed for trucks in order to protect garbage collectors from projected objects when the contents of the hopper of a rear-loading truck are compacted, an analysis of the preliminary needs, followed by a study, were carried out in order to describe a more precisely work situations and constraints related to handling, the vehicles and work organization. The research results painted a very different picture of the risks than that described from the original request. At the end, the study showed that more than one third of the accidents occured when workers climbed up or stood down from the rear step or the truck cab, or when they stand on the step. In order to provide information to the researchers and benefit from workplace experience, a follow-up committee was established during the project. It included members of two sector-based associations (Transport-storage and Municipal affairs), and representatives of municipalities, private companies, workers’ associations, employers’ associations, the Commission de la santé et de la sécurité du travail (CSST), Health and social services agencies (ASSS) and Health and social services centres (CSSS, occupational health teams). The involvement of these different partners was beneficial because, in addition to the research team’s dissemination of results, the workplace representatives adapted the research results to make them accessible and helped develop tools that the workplaces can use.