Publications by authors named "Jessica Riel"

Objective: Conducting participatory research (PR) aimed at improving health implies considering inequitable power relations, including those related to sex/gender (S/G). This necessitates specific skills and methods and may be challenging especially since guidelines are scarce. Our objective was to perform a scoping review to provide a typology of existing guidelines for researchers on how to take account of S/G in the context of PR in public health, with a focus on occupational and environmental health.

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Background: The International Ergonomics Association (IEA) is an international federation of associations created in 1959, whose mission is to extend the scope of ergonomics research and intervention to all spheres of society in order to improve human well-being.

Objective: This article presents an overview of the main research papers that were presented at the 21st Triennial IEA 2021 Conference.

Method: A total of 23 talks, from nine countries, were presented over four sessions.

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Since the establishment of the Gender and Work Technical Committee (TC) of the International Ergonomics Association (IEA) in 2006, many researchers have addressed the role of sex and gender in ergonomics, producing a great deal of new information. This special issue aims to present new ways of viewing women's work and gender differences in work-related injury risks in an era of rapidly changing labour market configurations. It offers innovative methods for integrating sex and gender into ergonomic analysis and for designing work environments.

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This article aims to analyse the integration of sex and gender (s/g) by ergonomics students during their internship at the master's degree level, following training sessions on s/g issues in the workplace. This exploratory research used a descriptive mixed-methods design, encompassing evaluation of students' intention to use the content from the training ( = 13 students), and a multiple case study ( = 5 ergonomics interventions). The results show that while students found the training relevant, they only minimally integrated s/g in their interventions and when they did, it was primarily from an anthropometric and physiological perspective.

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At the 2018 IEA conference, the Gender and Work Technical Committee organized three symposia with over 20 presentations. Overall, these contributions positioned ergonomics as a theoretical and pragmatic approach developing innovative methods to integrate sex/gender analysis into the construction and evaluation of interventions. This special issue of Applied Ergonomics includes diverse approaches to the consideration of sex and gender in ergonomics, including methods in accident analysis, musculoskeletal disorders, work-family interactions, work schedule analysis, prevention programs and evaluation of interventions.

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Article Synopsis
  • The article explores how including sex and gender (s/g) analysis in integrated knowledge translation (iKT) affects ergonomics and occupational health initiatives.
  • It examines twelve intervention-research studies through thematic content analysis of interviews with 15 researchers, revealing various impacts on partners' perceptions, workplace conditions, practices, policies, and economic outcomes.
  • Findings indicate that while explicitly discussing sex/gender often leads to broader system-level changes, it is less effective in directly altering workplace-level practices compared to interventions that do not focus on s/g analysis.
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Whether or not official work/family balance measures exist within an organization, scheduling accommodations often go through informal channels involving colleagues and superiors and are negotiated within interpersonal relationships. This study examines the relationship dimensions of the scheduling strategies of cleaners working atypical hours in the transport sector through the lenses of ergonomic activity, network, and gender analyses. Using semi-directed interviews, observation, and network analysis, we revealed the effect of gender on relationship dynamics and the influence of these dynamics on work/family balance strategies deployed by cleaners.

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In partnership with the largest teachers' union confederation in Québec ( Centrale des syndicats du Québec), two qualitative research studies that integrate gender were conducted in the teaching community. These ergonomic studies advocated a participatory approach involving interviews and observations with high school teachers (thirty-five) and female teachers responsible for vocational training in trades with predominantly male clientele (twelve). The results revealed that gender influences work success by reducing the operational leeway available for female teachers to carry out their work and protect their health.

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Women's workplaces should guarantee healthy pregnancies while supporting pregnant women as workers. In Québec (Canada), a pregnant worker exposed to a "danger" for herself or her fetus may ask her employer to be reassigned to other work appropriate to her skills. This approach differs from other regulatory contexts in North America in that protection of fetal and maternal health is embedded in the health and safety legislation.

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The continuing worldwide struggle for decent working conditions is under intense economic, social, and political pressures. Women are particularly affected by these pressures because of their still-tenuous position in the service sector, in lowprestige, low-paid occupations. In addition, their occupational health issues are often overlooked or minimized.

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Health and safety issues in a vocational training center were explored in this study. Several sources and methods were used: group interviews with students in traditionally female [F] and male [M] trades, i.e.

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Objective: This study characterized teachers' work at a vocational training (VT) center and the conditions under which the activity is learned.

Methods: We interviewed administrators and 12 teachers (4 males, 8 females) representing three study programs, selected as representative (age, seniority, and employment status).

Results: What emerged was a portrait of an evolving profession within an organization that was highly structured in terms of the assignment of tasks and schedules, but unstructured in terms of support for job adaptation and job retention.

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Unlabelled: Québec teachers have been identified as having a high level of stress and having difficulties with work-family balancing (WFB). An analysis of their work activity was done to identify task elements that could be changed.

Participants: Work of 15 teachers was observed and 20 other teachers were interviewed.

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Unlabelled: In Québec, Canada, cleaning tasks were once divided into 'light' or 'heavy' cleaning, assigned respectively to women and men. These categories are being merged; in principle, both genders are assigned the same tasks. Activity analysis using observations and interviews examined work activity of male and female cleaners in two hospitals.

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Work content is adversely affected by precarious employment conditions, with consequences for workers and clients/customers. Three examples are taken from professions involving long-term relations between workers and clients. Adult education teachers hired on short-term contracts to teach primarily immigrant populations prepare their courses under less favorable conditions than regular teachers and their employment context foments hostility among teachers.

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