Effects of workers' Body Mass Index and task conditions on exertion psychophysics during Vertical Handling Tasks.
BACKGROUND: Obesity prevalence in the workforce is clearly increasing. Simultaneously, manual lifting/lowering loads, referred to as Vertical Handling Tasks (VHT) in this paper, are common in industries and services. Performing VHT exposes workers to physical overload, which can be measured using a...
| Published in: | Work Vol. 63; no. 2; pp. 231 - 242 |
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| Main Authors: | , , , |
| Format: | pictorial research tables/charts Journal Article |
| Published: |
Sage Publications Inc.
2019
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ccm&AN=137116372&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ccm uiTerm: 137116372 longDbName: CINAHL Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: dissinfo: jinfo: jid: 10519815 3RC jtl: Work issn: 10519815 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: 2019 vid: 63 iid: 2 pid: 344 pub: Sage Publications Inc. place: Thousand Oaks, California artinfo: ui: 137116372 137116372 137116372 10.3233/WOR-192923 137116372 ppf: 231 ppct: 11 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P tig: atl: Effects of workers' Body Mass Index and task conditions on exertion psychophysics during Vertical Handling Tasks. aug: au: Colim, Ana Arezes, Pedro Flores, Paulo Braga, Ana Cristina affil: ALGORITMI Research Centre, School of Engineering, University of Minho, Guimarães, Portugal sug: subj: Body Mass Index Evaluation Blue Collar Workers Task Performance and Analysis Lifting Exertion Psychophysics Human Female Male Young Adult Adult Scales Pilot Studies Questionnaires Anthropometry Variable Obesity Spearman's Rank Correlation Coefficient Data Analysis Software Descriptive Statistics Funding Source Mann-Whitney U Test Adult: 19-44 years Female Male ab: BACKGROUND: Obesity prevalence in the workforce is clearly increasing. Simultaneously, manual lifting/lowering loads, referred to as Vertical Handling Tasks (VHT) in this paper, are common in industries and services. Performing VHT exposes workers to physical overload, which can be measured using a psychophysical approach. Various risk factors can increase this overload, including individual factors such as workers' Body Mass Index (BMI). OBJECTIVE: To study the possible effects of workers' BMI and some task conditions on physical overload during VHT. METHODS: Psychophysical data were collected from 51 participants having different body constitutions (including non-obese, overweight and obese). The participants performed 6 VHT (3 different loads ×2 workstation configurations), during which they lifted and lowered a test-box between their knees and shoulders. For each task, they reported their perceived exertion using the Borg Category Ratio-10 (CR-10) scale. RESULTS: The results showed that the CR-10 scale is sensitive to the variation of the task conditions tested. However, the psychophysical data pointed to a tendency to decrease the perception of physical overload as workers' BMI increases. CONCLUSIONS: This may compromise the validity of the application of psychophysical data as an ergonomic approach for Work-Related Musculoskeletal Disorders (WRMSD) prevention in obese workers. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: pictorial research tables/charts Journal Article ougenre: Article language: English refInfo: holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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