Young and less experienced home building workers are the intended audience for a new publication from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) which is intended to help them avoid injuries.

Simple Solutions for Home Building Workers: A Basic Guide for Preventing Manual Material Handling Injuries, uses drawings and non-technical language to describe manual material handling injury risks and explain how these risks can be reduced and/or eliminated for certain activities.

“Home building is physically demanding work and manual material handling may be the most difficult part of the job,” according to NIOSH. “These activities increase the risk of painful strains and sprains and more serious soft tissue injuries. This booklet provides basic information about readily available work practices and equipment that can help both new and experienced workers, contractors and builders prevent serious manual material handling injuries.”

The guide is is also available in Spanish as Soluciones Simples: Para los Trabajadores de la Construcción Residencial: Guía Básica Para Prevenir  Lesiones en el Manejo Manual de Materiales.

Simple Solutions for Home Building Workers is available as a web publication for printing or download at www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/2013-111/ and www.cdc.gov/spanish/niosh/docs/2013-111_sp/. 

It is in the public interest and may be freely copied or reprinted. 

A limited number of copies will be printed for distribution to home building industry stakeholders and will be available around July 15, 2013. These can be ordered by calling 1-800-CDC-INFO or on the NIOSH website at wwwn.cdc.gov/pubs/niosh.aspx.