Manuel Cifuentes

Manuel Cifuentes, Work Environment

Manuel Cifuentes, Work Environment

Associate Professor
Phone:
978-934-3271
Fax:
978-452-5711
Office:
Kitson 200Q

Biosketch

Manuel Cifuentes, M.D., Sc.D. has more than 15 years of clinical experience as psychiatrist and occupational mental health, occupational disability researcher, and professor of quantitative analysis. He published about the impact on mental health psychosocial working conditions of public school teachers, healthcare workers, and public transportation drivers in Chile (Vicente 1995; Cifuentes 1997; Suarez 1997) before addressing the impact of job strain on participation (Cifuentes 2008) and imputed working conditions on injuries (Boyer 2009) on US healthcare workers. He has fully revealed the benefits of using public data (i.e., O*NET) to supply information on job level psychosocial and biomechanical working conditions (Cifuentes 2007; Cifuentes 2010; Meyer 2011) to evaluate the health risks associated to diverse patterns of job exposure. He has also published in clinical journals (Spine, PAIN) focusing on work disability related aspects, with emphasis in the iatrogenic effects of opioid use to ameliorate musculoskeletal pain due to occupational causes. In this work, he has emphasized the use of sophisticated statistical approaches by using multilevel analysis (Webster 2009), longitudinal growth models (Cifuentes 2010), and propensity scores (Webster 2010). His current interest areas relates to occupational mental health, work related disability and return to work, and occupational epidemiology and quantitative analysis. 


Selected Peer-reviewed Publications:
1.    d'Errico A, Punnett L, Cifuentes M, Boyer J, Tessler J, Gore R, Scollin P, and Slatin C.Hospital injury rates in relation to socioeconomic status and working conditions Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 2006 May, 64:325-33.
2.    Cifuentes M, Boyer J, Gore R, d'Errico A, Scollin P, Tessler J, Lerner D, Kriebel D, Punnett L, Slatin C, PHASE in Healthcare Research Team. Inter-Method Agreement between O*NET and Survey Measures of Psychosocial Exposure among Healthcare Industry Employees American Journal of Industrial Medicine. 50(7), 545-53. 
3.    Cifuentes M, Boyer J, Gore R, d'Errico A, Scollin P, Tessler J, Lerner D, Kriebel D, Punnett L, Slatin C, PHASE in Healthcare Research Team. Job strain predicts survey response in healthcare industry workers. American Journal of Industrial Medicine. Volume 51, Issue 4, Date: April 2008, Pages: 281-289.
4.    Cifuentes M, Sembajwe G, Tak S, Gore R, Kriebel D, and Punnett L.The association of major depressive episodes with income inequality and the human development index. Social Science & Medicine Volume: 67   Issue: 4   Pages: 529-539
5.    Webster BS, Cifuentes M, Verma S, et al.Geographic Variation in Opioid Prescribing for Acute, Work-Related, Low Back Pain and Associated Factors: A Multilevel Analysis American Journal of Industrial Medicine. Volume: 52 Issue: 2   Pages: 162-171
6.    Sembajwe G, Cifuentes M, Tak S, Kriebel D, Gore R, Punnett L. National income, self-reported wheezing and asthma diagnosis from the World Health Survey. The European Respiratory Journal 2010 Feb;35(2):279-86. Epub 2009 Sep 9.
7.    Young AE, Cifuentes M, Wasiak R, et al.Urban-Rural Differences in Work Disability Following Occupational Injury: Are They Related to Differences in Healthcare Utilization?  Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine   Volume: 51   Issue: 2   Pages: 204-212
8.    Boyer J, Galizzi M, Cifuentes M, et al.Ergonomic and Socioeconomic Risk Factors for Hospital Workers' Compensation Injury Claims. Am J Ind Med. 2009 Jul;52(7):551-62.
9.    Cifuentes M, Boyer J, Lombardi D, Punnett L. O*NET as a Job Exposure Matrix. Am J Ind Med. 2010 Sep;53(9):898-914. 
10.  Webster BS Cifuentes M, Pransky G. Relationship of Early Magnetic Resonance Imaging for Work-related Acute Low Back Pain with Disability and Medical Utilization Outcomes. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine 2010 Vol 52-9;900-907
11.  Cifuentes M, Webster BS, Geneway S, Pransky G. Patterns of Opioid Use for Low Back Pain.   Pain. 2010. 2010 Oct;151(1):22-9.
12.  Meyer J, Cifuentes M, Warren N. Association of self-rated physical health and incident hypertension with O*NET factors: Validation using a representative national survey. JOEM. 2011 Feb;53(2):139-45.
13.  Cifuentes M, Willetts, J, Wasiak, R. Health maintenance care in work-related low back pain and its association with disability recurrence. JOEM. 2011 Apr;53(4):396-404.