published_or_final_version / Asian Studies / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Nursing Studies / Master / Master of Nursing

In 2011, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics documented injury rates of musculoskeletal injuries requiring days away from work in the full-time firefighter work force at approximately 185/10,000 employees. This represents a staggering cost to municipalities in overtime salaries as well as departmental readiness to meet community needs. We propose, in year one of the project, to observationally determine the prospective association between physical performance measures at baseline and risk of future musculoskeletal injury in a cohort of municipal firefighters of the Austin Fire Department (AFD). We will implement an injury registry surveillance system as well as utilize the AFD Wellness Center physical fitness evaluation of all firefighters within AFD. The prospective association between changes in physical performance measures and risk of musculoskeletal injury within a cohort of AFD firefighters will allow determination of risk of occupational injury incidence and injury severity. To study the effect of musculoskeletal training on lowering the risk of occupationally-related injury, we will conduct a randomized cluster cross-over trial. The critical intervention will be a strength training intervention of six months duration, implemented in Year 2. There are a total of 43 fire stations in the AFD. We will randomize 50% of the fire stations in a strength training intervention for six months with the remaining 50% of fire station participating for the second six months. Changes in fitness, strength, and incidence of injury will be monitored for the 12 months of this design. Results from this study will be disseminated to firefighting agencies with strategies for occupationally-related musculoskeletal injury prevention. / text

This social learning analysis of Community Safety Partnerships in Scotland will develop two sets of arguments – one empirical and one epistemological. The empirical argument is that the well-documented difficulties in partnership working (largely a result of the very different occupational cultures, structures, roles and functions of the agencies generally brought on board) are not only very much in evidence but that current ways of organising and structuring partnership working in Scotland are also very often not conducive to overcoming them. It will be argued that viewing partnership working through the lens of a relational social learning perspective (Etienne Wenger’s theory of communities of practice) provides a clear set of recommendations for resolving these problems. These empirical arguments shall form the main focus of the thesis but, given the theoretical perspective employed, a related epistemological argument also emerged and shall be developed. It is generally accepted in theoretical criminology (and elsewhere in the social sciences) that the ideas and mentalities of the discipline have been shaped by the institutional contexts in which actors were doing criminology or criminal justice work (whether as practitioners or as scholars). Therefore, it will be argued that Community Safety Partnerships are important not only as sites of criminal justice practice but also as new institutional spaces in which ways of thinking about crime and community safety have the potential to be transformed. The empirical and epistemological arguments are interrelated because it will only be where the problems of conflict and communication within partnerships can be positively resolved that their potential to become sites of thinking that transcend traditional criminal justice mentalities will be fulfilled.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.