Long-haul truck drivers in British Columbia face a lot of risks related to the nature of their work.
Not only can roads and driving conditions become dangerous, but even something as simple as sitting for a long period of time can have a big impact on a driver’s overall health, which is why some local researchers are looking into it.
A research team, led by Associate Professor of UNBC’s School of Health Sciences Dr. Mamdouh Shubair, is trying to better understand factors that impact driver’s health, safety and wellness.
“To our awareness, as a research team, there hasn’t been much work in Canada specifically looking at things that long-haul truck drivers are exposed to from a risk perspective on the road and general lifestyle,” says Shubair.
The research project is a joint effort between UNBC, the University of Saskatchewan, University of Waterloo, Transport Canada and SafetyDriven, the Trucking Safety Council of B.C. and has been funded by WorkSafe B.C.
Shubair says they are currently in the middle of full-blown data collection and their pilot results show truckers face risk factors related to smoking habits, alcohol use, exercise, diet, stress, mental health issues, and fatigue.
“Lack of sleep is a big issue — fatigue can affect concentration especially at night,” says Shubair, explaining they are looking at long-haul drivers who often make lengthy trips between provinces or to the states.
He says healthy eating is also a big issue truckers face because it’s hard to make healthy eating choices on the road.
“We are trying to better understand how long sitting hours with vibrations in the truck and stress on the road could cause these things,” says Shubair. “There’s a multitude of conditions affected by them not eating healthier and not exercising enough, but we can’t expect them to if they are on the go always.”
To gather their data they’ve created two online surveys — one for truckers and one for trucking companies – to learn about truckers' behaviours and to find out what trucking companies are doing to support drivers to lead a healthier lifestyle.
Shubair says the research will compare the results from the truckers and management to find out if there are existing programs within trucking companies that help promote health, wellness and safety and learn how those programs impact the individual drivers.
While Shubair says they have already received a number of responses, they will be collecting the survey results until January 2019 and hope to gather about 1,000 responses from truckers and 1,000 from employers.
The surveys are available online, take roughly 30 minutes to complete, and can be accessed through any device including laptops, tablets, and phones.
Both surveys are voluntary, and Shubair says anyone who has any questions regarding the surveys is welcome to email him at [email protected].
To participate in the research, take the truck driver survey here or take the employer/manager survey here.
