Biosketch
Alicia Kurowski, Sc.D., is trained in occupational ergonomics and epidemiology, with expertise in the healthcare setting, specifically regarding safe patient/resident handling. Her doctoral thesis examined ergonomic exposures of nursing home personnel before and after a safe resident handling program, and she has published a number of articles showing effectiveness of the program in reducing ergonomic exposures and rates of workers’ compensation claims. Additionally, she assessed work organization characteristics in individual nursing homes that might affect how successfully the program was implemented. She has also co-authored a chapter for a social sciences text detailing physical and psychosocial hazards of care work, evaluated the predictors of workers’ compensation claim filing, and collaborated with the Center for Disability Research at the Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety to analyze return-to-work experiences of nursing home employees with lost-time resident handling-related compensation claims.
