Hazardous Work Environments Research Articles

Population attributable fraction of indicators for musculoskeletal diseases: a cross-sectional study of fishers in Korea.

BackgroundThe musculoskeletal disease (MSD) burden is an important health problem among Korean fishers. We aimed to investigate the indicators of the prevalence of MSD and contributions of significant indicators to MSD in Korean fishers.MethodsThis cross-section study included 927 fishers (male, 371; female, 556) aged 40 to 79 years who were enrolled from 3 fishery safety and health centers. The outcome variable was one-year prevalence of MSD in 5 body parts (the neck, shoulder, hand, back, and knee). Independent variables were sex, age, educational attainment, household income, job classification, employment xlink:type, hazardous working environment (cold, heat, and noise), ergonomic risk by the 5 body parts, anxiety disorder, depression, hypertension, diabetes, and hyperlipidemia. The adjusted odds ratio of MSDs by the 5 body parts were calculated using multiple logistic regression analysis. We computed the population attributable fraction (PAF) for each indicators of MSDs using binary regression models.ResultsThe one-year prevalence of MSD in the neck, shoulder, hand, back, and knee was 7.8%, 17.8%, 7.8%, 27.2%, and 16.2% in males vs. 16.4%, 28.1%, 23.0%, 38.7%, and 30.0% in females, respectively. The ergonomic risk PAF according to the body parts ranged from 22.8%–59.6% in males and 22.8%–50.3% in female. Mental diseases showed a significant PAF for all body parts only among female (PAF 9.1%–21.4%). Cold exposure showed a significant PAF for the neck, shoulder, and hand MSD only among female (25.6%–26.8%). Age was not a significant indicator except for the knee MSD among female.ConclusionsErgonomic risk contributed majorly as indicators of MSDs in both sexes of fishers. Mental disease and cold exposure were indicators of MSDs only among female fishers. This information may be important for determining priority risk groups for the prevention of work-related MSD among Korean fishers.

Efforts to Control Work Environment Hazards Based on 5S Principles for Smoked Fish Workers

Workstation design can be a potential hazard for workers. A workstation that is arranged following the 5S principles will prevent the exposure of potential work environment hazards such as improper work position that can affect the health of the workers. This research aimed to describe the condition of work station and create a new design a workstation according to 5S principles. This research was quantitative research with cross sectional approach. Samples were taken purposively from 141 smoked fish workers The data on the respondents’ characteristics and potential hazards were analyzed using descriptive analysis. The data were collected using a checklist and a questionnaire. Only several parts of the 5S principles had been applied in the smoked fish workstation. The workstation at the smoked fish production site was not in accordance with 5S principles. The work station has poor hygiene and sanitation condition. New design workstations based on 5S principles with low-cost intervention are proposed to increase the health condition of the workers.

Moving out but not for the better: Health consequences of interprovincial rural-urban migration in China.

Using panel data from a survey conducted by the Research Center for Rural Economy, this study overcomes the selection bias associated with most health status measures by incorporating dialect proximity as an instrumental variable to evaluate the causal effects of interprovincial migration on individuals' health status in China. The results indicate that, compared to an absorbed category, which includes intraprovincial migration and non-migration, interprovincial migration worsens health (measured by the self-reported health status score) by 3%. It is also found that, compared to intraprovincial migrants, interprovincial migrants are more likely to report a lower SHS score, whereas the health effect differences between interprovincial migrants and non-migrants are insignificant. The study identifies two potential mechanisms that explain this result: (i) The increase in income following migration may improve interprovincial migrants' health, and (ii) the exposure to hazardous working environments worsens health to a significant extent. This finding is also linked to the following gender-related finding: Compared to women, men are more likely to be employed in heavy industries with hazardous working environments; the negative effects of interprovincial migration on the health status are stronger for men than for women migrants, suggesting that the industry effect dominates.

Rainfall challenges and strategies to improve housing construction in Sub-Saharan Africa: the case of Ghana

Even though elsewhere in the Western world and the gulf regions, many studies explore the effect of extreme weather conditions on the construction of houses, little is known in sub-Saharan Africa. This study therefore engages homeowners and various construction workers in a qualitative study to analyze how rainfall affects the building of houses. A total of 75 participants, comprising 20 homeowners and 55 construction workers were purposively selected to share their experiences about the impact of rainfall on the construction of houses using in-depth interviews. The narratives of the participants made several revelations to deepen knowledge on the effect of climatic conditions such as rainfall on housing construction. The study revealed that rainfall causes financial losses to homeowners and creates hazardous work environments for construction workers. Financial losses are encountered through the destruction of building materials, increases in the cost of building materials in the wet season and extra labour costs incurred in carrying out reworks. This challenge posed by extreme rainfall has implications of hindering many prospective homeowners in achieving their aspiration of becoming homeowners.

Dynamic Fall Risk Assessment Framework for Construction Workers Based on Dynamic Bayesian Network and Computer Vision

AbstractDue to the dynamics of changing construction-related entities at construction sites and the hazardous work environment, safety accidents occur frequently, especially falls from heights. The...

Security Checking Robot for Coal Mineshaft

Coaling, the most important and abundant fossil fuel, has been used for centuries. Extracting coal from the coal mine is a complicated and riskyprocess. Safely safeguarding a person's safety has been a primary concern in the underground coal mining industry.Ensuring the safety of miners has been a major challenge.Mining has posed a threat to miners' health and life due to its hazardous working environment and long-term effects. Due to the hazardous and damaging gases emitted by mining operations, the connected workers now face a survival threat.Placing significant pressure on the mining sector.To deal with these problems we have developed a safety monitoring robot for coal mine with wireless video streaming in the area which is hard to reach or hazardous areas.

Development of a novel tool for automation of the contamination measurement

Abstract. Considering that about 100 000 m2 of wall area per nuclear facility must be decontaminated (Hübner et al., 2017), the automation of mechanical decontamination work offers high potential to support people in performing their work and reduce errors in the decommissioning process. Furthermore, the exposure potential for people in contaminated environments is reduced and they are protected from health hazards (Petereit et al., 2019). In the ROBDEKON project, a competence center is being established in Germany to develop practical robotic systems for decontamination work in hazardous environments. To this end, four research institutions are working with industrial partners on the development of (partially) autonomous robotic systems for the decommissioning and decontamination of nuclear facilities, the handling of waste, and the remediation of landfills and contaminated sites (Petereit et al., 2019). At the Institute for Technology and Management in Construction (KIT-TMB), the focus is on development of an automated solution for the (clearance) measurement of near-surface contaminations. A mobile elevating working platform is used as the robotic platform with a contamination array as the tool. The array measures the surface activity on the wall areas and verifies compliance with the thresholds. The contamination array is based on two sensor concepts: measurement and localization. Up to four hand-held contamination-measuring devices are attached to the array to parallelize the measurement. In order to avoid damaging the sensitive detector window foil of the contamination probes, the wall surface to be measured is first examined for imperfections with the help of a laser scanner. For localization of the array, up to four laser sensors are used for distance measurements. Measurement results are automatically saved after each measurement in a table specific to the measurement method and are available to users for documentation purposes at any time. In the further course of the project, the measurement results depending on the radiation level will be overlaid with a geometric 3D environment mapping.

From chaos to control \u2013 experiences of healthcare workers during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic: a focus group study

BackgroundThe Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused overwhelming challenges to healthcare systems worldwide. Healthcare workers (HCWs) have faced particular challenges: being exposed to the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and caring for patients having a new and potentially life-threatening disease. The aim of this study was to explore how HCWs in the Swedish healthcare system perceived their work situation during the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.MethodsFocus group discussions and interviews with HCWs were performed from June to October 2020 in one Swedish healthcare region. A purposeful sampling approach was used to select a variety of professions (physicians, nurses, nurse aides and cleaners) and workplaces (hospital inpatient wards, emergency department, nursing home and home care service). Qualitative content analysis was used for data analysis.Results In total, 51 HCWs participated in eight focus group discussions and one HCW participated in an individual interview. The content analysis identified two main categories: ‘Concerns about the risk of infection and transmission of infection to others’, and ‘Transition from chaos to managing in a new and challenging work situation’. The findings revealed how HCWs perceived working conditions, including experiences of fear for personal health, confusion and uncertainty regarding personal protective equipment and infection prevention and control (PPE/IPC), and fear of infecting others. Both fearful and appreciating attitudes were achieved from the surrounding community. Helpful strategies for transition from chaos to control were lifted i.e. present and supportive leadership, and finding comfort and strength in the working team. Both helplessness and meaningfulness were described when caring for COVID-19 patients.ConclusionsThis study provides unique insights into HCWs experiences of an extremely challenging work situation during the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, including feelings of stress and insecurity in a chaotic and hazardous working environment. But there is also mitigation of these challenges and even positive experiences including feelings of safety and meaningfulness. To enhance safety among HCWs in healthcare crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the findings highlight the importance of avoiding confusion about PPE/IPC, having a supportive healthcare leadership and ensuring accurate information provision about virus transmission to the public.

Sensor Modules for Enhancement of Safety Performance in Construction Safety Management

Safety management is very important for construction sector as it is the most hazardous working environments when it comes to occupational fatalities. The high cases such as injuries at the workplace, illnesses, and fatalities often caused harm to the workers and create the delay on the work progress. Therefore, this paper reviewed the whole operation process of the sensor modules that enhanced safety performance to prevent accidents occurred on construction site. By providing lab scale location-based safety management services to the workers, this technology able to allow a speedy response in the event of accident. From the benchmark conducted, there are three study that had been conducted previously using vibrational alert signal which identified as an accurate transmitted especially inside a danger zone, as the vibrational function of the sensor module able to function within the designated range. The second benchmark shows that previous study able to identify errors in the location information of the workers arising from obstacles, even though so the technology able to conveyed within the designated range as well. Thirdly, the previous study able to shows the information of a fall was conveyed quickly upon occurrence, and the previous study showed that fall able to identified using the context-aware information from the sensor module. The findings showed that the real-time location and context-aware information collected from the sensor module can be used to prevent accidents and respond quickly in the event of a fall. However, the vibration signal which generated by sensor module was insufficient to alert the workers when approaching the danger zone at construction site. Therefore to improve the whole development of prototype sensor module a further study is needed to incorporate the vibrational and alarm signal for recognising accidents upon occurred for enhancement safety management at construction sites.

Toward AI-enabled augmented reality to enhance the safety of highway work zones: Feasibility, requirements, and challenges

Highway work zones are considered among the most hazardous working environments. In 2018 alone, 124 workers lost their lives to fatal accidents. The lack of predictive safety systems that notify workers of upcoming dangers in advance is a major reason to blame in the highway maintenance and operation community. This article presents an integrative design framework for bringing recent advances in Augmented Reality (AR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to enhance the safety of highway workers through real-time multimodal notifications on-spot. To this end, this article conceptualizes and co-designs three major pillars: (1) AR user interface design for multimodal notification, (2) real-time AI at the edge for vehicle detection/classification from distance, and (3) real-time wireless communication in work zone setting to enable latency-aware operation between AI and AR components. Our early results demonstrate that we can achieve 24.83 FPS end-to-end execution latency on the Xavier AGX Jetson board with 48.7% mAP on BDD100K dataset, and a real-time communication covering 120 meters with an average latency of 5.1 ms at the farthest distance. Our mixed-method user research also reveals an acceptable level of excitement and engagement from the body of highway workers toward both the proposed technology and the designed user interface. Overall, this article provides a proof-of-concept toward AI-enabled AR safety systems in highway work zones.

Comparative Analysis of Coal Mining Disasters in Turkey

Use of coal mine is based on centuries, but the expansion of its usage area has been after the Industrial Revolution in parallel with other mines. With the effect of this revolution; The use of minerals such as coal, iron, copper and tin has increased. Among these mines, coal mine; It has a very important place because it can be used for industrialization, powering machines, generating electricity and heating. In order to provide the increasing need in these areas every year, coal enterprises were established in countries with rich coal deposits and served the energy sector. The share of coal in the energy resources consumed in the world has increased in a short time and has become a determining factor on the world economy. This situation has led to an increase in the number of coal mine enterprises, with developed countries turning to the mining sector for industrialization and economic progress. Accidents in coal mines have increased as the number of mines has grown. Despite the fact that numerous studies have been conducted to prevent these accidents, accidents still occur. Coal mining is regarded as a hazardous work environment due to the high frequency of accidents and their consequences. To minimize these risks and ensure a healthy working environment, the required infrastructure should be established, audit-oriented studies should be conducted, and flaws should be remedied based on the findings. Within the scope of the study, the way and types of coal mine accidents, which are common in Turkey, were investigated, as well as a literature analysis of the reasons of these accidents. The number of accidents and casualties between 2015-2020 were examined and a future situation analysis was made. Regression Analysis Method, one of the statistical analysis methods, was used in the situation analysis phase. The number of coal mine accidents and fatalities in countries around the world since 1902, has been studied. By using the same Analysis Method, the future situation analysis for the next 10 years was made in the light of the data between 1902-2020, and data on the number of accidents and casualties that may occur in the coal mining area were obtained.

IoT based Smart Helmet for Industrial Workers

Abstract: Safety is very important in every workplace, but very often we hear about accidents in factories industries causing loss of life. The labours and workers working in any factory, industries, construction site or mine is vulnerable to accidents and therefore they should be with safety guards properly. In most of the accidents, number of deaths or severe injuries is maximized because the labours and worker are not wearing safety equipmentor wearing low grade safety equipment. Working environment hazards include radiation leakage, fall due to suffocation, poisoning gas leakage and gas explosion. Hence air quality and hazardous event detection is very important factorin industry. In order to achieve those safety measures, the proposed system provides wireless sensors network for monitoring real time situation of working environment from monitoring station. Keywords: Industries; Helmet; Cloud Computing; ThingSpeak Internet of Things; Sensors; Ubiquitous Sensing

Reviewing Batik with Natural Coloring based on the Clean Production Theory with an Ecofeminist Perspective (Case Study: Putri Kawung Batik Community in Klaten)

Mass and rapid production of batik using synthetic color and printing techniques engenders environmental problems such as waste production, air pollution, water pollution, unhealthy and hazardous work environment, and a threat to the sustainability of hand-drawn batik. Clean production is one solution to this problem. This paper discusses the practice of batik with natural coloring based on the theory of clean production with an ecofeminist perspective. The method employed in this research is a case study with a one-unit production (cluster) approach of Putri Kawung batik community. The findings show that the practice of clean batik production in Putri Kawung batik community still focuses on the input and process of using natural coloring, material selection, and reuse of wax materials. This shows that the role of women through community gradually practices clean production, even though it has not yet extended to its output processing.

An evolutionary approach to robot scheduling in protected cultivation systems for uninterrupted and maximization of working time

The protected cultivation system, an alternative to open field cultivationprovidesopportunities such as year-roundcropproductionand improved food security especially during disastersas well asease in automation. However, protected cultivation is limitedbythe hazardous work environments and skilled labor shortages thusnecessitatingrobotic applications.Robots are mostly battery-powered, requiring regular charges depending on the task. In a multi-robot system, due to the limitation on the availability of charging infrastructure and uneven discharge rates of the robots depending on the task, it is very difficult to predict when the robots would require charging. Therefore, to maximize the continuous work time of the robots, optimal scheduling is required. Consequently, we propose a novel system for efficiently utilizingmobilerobotic systems in protectedcultivationby developing a scheduling systemthat maximizes work timeand minimizes concentrated energy demand.We formulated the robot schedulingproblem to evaluate battery charge stateregularly and optimally send the robot to thecharging station. This problem was solved using an evolutionary algorithm.We considered: a) the number of available robots; b) number of charging stations; c) required work hours;d) robot battery capacity; e)robotbattery charge and discharge rates; and f) thenumber of continuous discharge time instances.All parameters could be set to userpreference.The applicability of the proposed method was demonstrated with experimental simulations using MATLAB under differentcases and scenarios. These cases and scenarios demonstrated that our proposed system maximized worktime by a significant percentage and minimized the required power to charge the batteries in all situations.

Crisis demands leadership, so does our research

(2020) highlights a range of research topics that are ripe for study in the current COVID-19 pandemic. Since the time of writing, however, the pandemic in the United States has grown more severe, there have been significant accompanying economic disruptions (including large-scale unemployment and underemployment, with many organizations closing permanently), federal troops are being deployed in some cities, and a national movement spurred by the murder of George Floyd has prompted the country to again consider its legacy of race relations and racism. [...]the situation Rudolph etal. wrote about is even more chaotic today than they envisioned. [...]many employees in lower wage jobs may be experiencing cumulative stress due to many factors including physical illness, mental distress, and adverse impact. In line with the focal article, we believe that a discussion on the occupational health and safety for different employees, including those on the frontlines (i.e., nurses);those transitioning to working from home;and those experiencing furloughs, layoffs, and reduced hours, is necessary. [...]research should be conducted to determine the extent to which leaders have the ability to influence work stressors during a crisis (i.e., high workloads, hazardous work environments, building team cohesion and social support, enhancing communication strategies, fears of getting infected, negative emotions, and low perceived organizational support).

COVID-19 and employee psychological safety: Exploring the role of signaling theory

[...]lack of adequate protection and perceived organizational support may have a negative effect on employee well-being and even lead to posttraumatic stress symptoms. Because a pandemic poses an extreme threat to employee perceptions of organizational physical and psychological safety, using theory-based approaches to understand how organizations can reduce employee stress associated with changes spurred by COVID-19 is critical. Recently, almost every individual in the world has experienced a major change in their status quo (e.g., travel restrictions, retail shutdown, a demographically undiscerning and internationally connected health threat), which is frequently associated with increases in fear and distress and decreases in physical and psychological well-being. Because it is common for frontline workers to experience negative emotions linked to coping with stressors associated with COVID-19 (e.g., high workload, potentially hazardous working environment, unclear infection control policies, coworker negative emotions), applying leadership principles and supervisor behaviors inspired by signaling theory may help increase positive emotions among employees, which can be an extremely useful tool to inspire hope and to maintain employee trust in the organization (Kim & Niederdeppe, 2013). [...]simple signals that are followed through by organizational action and supervisor behaviors can increase the availability of job resources and decrease the amount of demands, resulting in a positive additive effect on health, safety, and well-being when larger scale changes such as training and survey analysis are not practical. * Corresponding author.

Occupational hazards, sleep quality and musculoskeletal problems of pregnant workers

The aim of this study was to identify the relationship between musculoskeletal problems and sleep quality and exposure to occupational hazards in working pregnant women. The study included a total of 142 pregnant women working in various industries. The risk of experiencing musculoskeletal system problems was found to increase with impaired sleep quality (OR interval min =1.132 max =1.303). As the amount of work-related physical damage increased, musculoskeletal complaints increased (OR interval min = 1.228 max = 1.527). Environmental hazards and psychosocial hazards seemed to increase the risk of having musculoskeletal problems (OR interval min = 1.209 max = 1.465, and OR interval min = 1.326 max = 1.547, respectively). Physical, psychosocial and workplace environmental hazards seemed to increase the risk of musculoskeletal complaints in pregnancy. It was also seen that as sleep quality decreased, so musculoskeletal complaints increased. Impact Statement What is already known about this subject? Occupational hazards and poor sleep quality can be associated with adverse health outcomes. Pregnant women working in different industries in Turkey may also face work-related hazards. They may also experience pregnancy-related sleep problems. In this context, there is a need to identify occupational hazards and problems related to sleep and to provide protective strategies. What do the results of this study add? The most frequent physical hazard was determined to be a simultaneous bending and rolling movement, the most frequent work environment hazard was noise exposure and the most frequent psychosocial hazard was the lack of a reward system. Physical, work environment and psychosocial hazards were observed to increase the risk of musculoskeletal problems. Moreover, the risk of having musculoskeletal problems increased as sleep quality deteriorated. What are the implications of these findings for clinical practice and/or further research? Training should be planned for working women, including the idea of conception and work-related hazards and protective strategies. It may be possible to provide arrangements related to the workplace by including employers in this training.

The interrelation between proactive coping and job stressors subjective evaluation in healthcare professionals during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic

IntroductionProactive coping helps to reduce stress “in advance” – by possible stressors’ anticipating (Greenglass & Fiksenbaum, 2009). Does it helps to reduce distress in hazardous work environment with extremely high uncertainty level – like in healthcare professionals’ work at the beginning COVID-19 pandemic? Data showed the lover level of proactive coping in healthcare professionals in comparison with non-medical group (Pearman, Hughes, Smith & Neupert, 2020). The acute issue is to investigate proactive coping among medical professionals with different stress level.ObjectivesSpecialists of Moscow public dispensaries (doctors, n=209; nurses, n=131) were checked during pandemic breakout (April 2020) - in order to compare proactive coping and job stressors’ subjective evaluation in groups with high and low chronic states.MethodsThe diagnostic set included: the job stress survey (Spielberger, 1994); the proactive coping inventory (Greenglass, 2002); the chronic stress and fatigues inventories (Leonova, 2012).ResultsCluster analysis by combination of stress-fatigue scores extracted equal 22% of professionals in risk subgroups. Surprisingly no proactive coping differences were found in nurses; among doctors preventive coping is significantly lower in risk subgroup (t=7.05; p=0.009). Revealed job stressors in risk groups for nurses are quite typical; but for doctors they are unusual: extreme workload (t=33.97; p<0.001), low coworkers support (t=48.94; p<0.001), lack of positive feedback (t=62.29; p<0.001).ConclusionsDespite the undeniable workload increase, well-to-do professionals perceived no high job stressors. In risk subgroup with lack of preventive coping, perceived stressors are likely connected with inability to predict strain increase and to minimize the impact of its negative effects (Moore, 2017).

Characterization of Fly Ash Sources in the Synthesis of Geopolymer

Fly ash (FA) based geopolymers are affected by the reactive nature of FA, concentration and quantity of alkali activators and the curing conditions. However, for the geopolymer production, researchers are still focusing on the concentration and quantity of alkali activators and the curing conditions. In the present study, FAs from two distinct thermal power plants and their activated geopolymer paste were investigated under physical, chemical, spectroscopic, mineralogical and microstructural characterizations. Based on the characterizations, the suitability of FAs for the geopolymer production was determined and validated by the compressive strength of geopolymer concrete. Additionally, the effect of critical parameters such as sodium hydroxide (NaOH) molarity, alkaline to FA ratio, curing time and curing temperature were studied. From the results, it is inferred that the FA’s potential reactivity is to be identified through its characterization techniques before the synthesis of geopolymers. The quantity of vitreous silica (Si) and alumina (Al) contents in the FA significantly affects the geopolymerisation process. In order to choose the right source of FA, it is required to characterize the FA and its activated geopolymer paste. Thereby, the wide variation of the geopolymer synthesis parameters that leads to undesirable production cost and hazardous work environment can be avoided.

Perceived hazardous physical work environments and job-related affective well-being of navy officers aboard the Republic of Korea Navy ships and submarines in South Korea

IntroductionNavy ships and submarines are important military measures that protect the Republic of Korea. They also comprise naval officers’ workplace. However, few studies have examined naval officers’ working environment and...