National Occupational Research Agenda for Wholesale and Retail Trade

The National Occupational Research Agenda for Wholesale and Retail Trade (WRT) is intended to identify the knowledge and actions most urgently needed to identify occupational risk factors to prevent avoidable adverse health outcomes among workers. This Agenda provides a vehicle for interested parties to describe the most relevant issues, research gaps, and safety and health needs for the WRT sector. It is meant to be broader than any one agency or organization.

NORA WRT Council members’ ideas were synthesized into five overarching strategic objectives which formed the basis for this agenda: (1) preventing musculoskeletal disorders, (2) traumatic injuries, (3) work-related violence, and (4) motor-vehicle crashes. While these first four topics were all covered in the WRT agenda during the second decade of NORA (2006-2016), the fifth objective focusing on (5) health work design and well-being has been introduced as a priority for the third decade of NORA (2016-2026). The WRT Council finalized this after a public comment period.

Objective 1: Reduce occupational musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), i.e., overexertion injuries among WRT workers.

Objective 2: Reduce traumatic injuries that arise from safety hazard, such as slips, trips, falls, and contact-with-objects among WRT workers.

Objective 3: Prevent work-related violence in the WRT sector

Objective 4: Reduce motor vehicle crashes (MVCs) among WRT workers

Objective 5: Advance our knowledge of the role of organizational and stress- related-risk factors in the prevention of musculoskeletal and other safety related injuries among WRT workers.