Work Study and Ergonomics

Introduction

The implementation of occupational hygiene and pollution control measures is still ignored in various developing countries like India. The agenda of occupational safety is not being taken as seriously in small scale industries, this may be due to illiteracy and cheap availability of workers from a large population. The preventive measures and equipment are taken as unwanted and sometimes not provided by the organization. Employees of small scale industries (SMEs) are mostly migrants and they agree with working environment and never consult about preventive measures. Hence, workers engaged in these units suffer from various occupational health hazards and risks. This chapter mainly focuses upon the occupational heat stress assessment and its hazardous effects.

Heat Stress and Human Performance

All human beings are largely affected by environmental temperature. The physical and mental performance deteriorates because of complex association of physiological and pathophysiological processes. The lack of fluid in human body occurs due to a long exposure to heat stress that lowers patience, possibly affecting mental and psychomotor functions. The assessment of heat stress and physiological response of worker is very vital to maintain optimal working environment for human health and productivity in developing country like India.

Gomes et al. (2002) compared the occupational exposure to heat and protective measures used by the workers of foundry unit and a bottling plant. The foundry workers were found at higher risk of exposure to heat, noise, IR and UV radiations as compared to the workers engaged in the bottle filling unit.

The level of heat stress and noise exceeds the permissible limit. Simultaneously there were observations of high rate of muscle spasm, hearing loss and visual disability (Gomes et al., 2002). The skin temperature is significantly affected by body activities and clothes; thus an index that recognizes work activity and clothing is more appropriate. There must be provision of sufficient rest breaks after a continuous work time so as to minimize the effect of metabolic heat (Onder et al., 2005). The standards of care and awareness will refuse due to any physical discomfort in any working environment which may increase the risk of health and safety in mining (Onder et al., 2005). The systolic blood pressure (SBP) changes with the induced heat stress (Cui et al., 2004).