Journal of Health and Safety at Work

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Introduction: Air health is an important environmental issue which has been endangered in recent years due to application of advanced technologies used for improving the financial welfare and relative prosperity of humans. Making use of pollution control systems and refinement methods are some general ways to control environmental pollution. Since several different techniques of control, each with its advantages and disadvantages are employed in order to mitigate the spread of air pollution, the aim of current study was to design a fuzzy multi-attribute decision making model to select the most appropriate air pollution control equipment in Mashhad Shargh Cement Company.
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Material and Method: After identifying the desired industry and also the production process, all factors affecting decision-making process including environmental factors, technical factors and economic factors were considered by utilizing Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process method. Importance weight of these criteria was calculated and subsequently the priority of model choices were also determined using this approach.
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Result: Among main criteria of the model, economic criteria was identified as the most important factor influencing the selection of the type of air pollution control equipment, with the wight of 0.555. Environmental and technical factors with weighting of 0,286 and 0,159 also gained the next priorities, respectively. Final weights of Electro filter, Baghouse and Hybrid filter technologies were calculated 0.256, 0.415 and 0.329 in cement mill unit and 0.291, 0.374 and 0.334 in material grinding and furnace unit, respectively.
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Conclusion: Finally, the proposed model that is based on the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process indicates that the Baghouse Technique is the most appropriate technique for the purpose of dust filtration in major sources of air pollution spread in Shargh Cement Company.

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Introduction: Work-related accidents may cause damage to people, environment and lead to waste of time and money. Health, Safety and Environment Management System has been developed in order to reduce accidents. This study aimed to investigate the effect of implementation of this system on reduction of the accidents and its consequences and also on the safety performance indices in Kermanshah Petrochemical Company.

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Material and Method: In this study, records of accidents were collected by OSHA incident report form 301 over 4 years. Following, the mean annual accidents and its consequences and safety performance indices were calculated and reported. Then, using statistical analysis, the impacts of two years implementation of this system on the accidents and its consequences and safety performance indices were evaluated.

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Result: The results showed that the implementation of HSE system was significantly correlated with Frequency Severity Indicator, Accident Severity Rate, lost days, minor accidents and total incidents (P-value <0.05). Moreover, the values of these variables have been reduced after implementation of this system. However, the system did not influence the Accident Frequency Rate and disabling accidents (P-value> 0.05).

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Conclusion: The implementation of Health, Safety and the Environment Management System caused a reduction in accidents and its consequences and most of the safety performance indices in the entire process cycle of Kermanshah Petrochemical Company. Overall, safety condition has been improved considerably.

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Introduction: Occupational exposure to crystalline silica increases the risk of lung cancer and restrictive lung disease with extensive fibrosis. Silica dust is a major health hazard in foundry factories. The aim of this study was to determine core making workers’ exposure to respirable crystalline silica dust in a foundry factory.

Material and Method: This cross-sectional study was conducted in core-making unit of a foundry factory in 2015. Occupational exposure of 55 workers to respirable crystalline silica aerosols was evaluated by using the improved NIOSH7602 method in core-making unit. Risk assessments for silicosis and excess lifetime risk of mortality from lung cancer were done according to Manettej and Rice models, respectively. Data was analyzed with Spss19 software.

Result: The mean of respirable crystalline silica dust was 0.246 ± 0.351 (mg/m3). All  workers’ exposure to respirable crystalline silica was higher than recommended occupational exposure limits. Silicosis mortality risk and excess lifetime risk of mortality from lung cancer were estimated in the range of 6-63 and 65 per thousand people, respectively.

Conclusion: The mean of workers’ exposure to respirable crystalline silica was higher than recommended occupational exposure standards in core making unit. The risk assessment of silicosis mortality and excess lifetime risk of mortality from lung cancer were higher than acceptable levels of risk.

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Introduction: Population growth and urban fast development caused increase production of all kinds of solid waste. And, street sweepers are exposed to a variety of risks and toxins by nature of their job for actual and potential. The aim of this study was to identify and to assess the risk factors of accidents and diseases threatening the health and lives of street sweepers in Tabriz city, Iran, and to propose practical solutions to control and remove them in order to promote health and safety and better efficiency.

Material and Method: This study is a descriptive-analytical type, which was conducted over a period of three months in 1393 among 150 street sweepers working in five city areas (areas 2, 5, 6, 7 and 9) of Tabriz. Data was collected through customized questionnaire. Content validity of the questionnaire was performed in the form of quality using a panel of experts and reliability through Cronbach’s alpha. Data after collecting were analyzed by SPSS-16software.

Result: The results showed that 48/7% of people have experienced at least one incident in the past two years. Records of disease showed that back pain with 20/7% and then skin problems whit 7/10% whit highest prevalence and kidney/bladder disease and thyroid whit 0/7% had lowest incidence. Musculoskeletal disorders symptoms percent have, respectively, in the hands, waist, legs highest and in elbow and knee least amount. Research findings showed that 50/70% of the study population, with a mean score of 168/82 have poor health and safety conditions, 21/71% of people have moderate condition and 81/26% of people have unfavorable condition. Among the components of health and safety respectively, components of clothes and other personal protective equipment and psychological problems with a high percentage of 80 percent, one of the most undesirable components of safety and health and components of periodic medical examinations and safety and health training programs were desirable.

Conclusion: The results showed that more than half of street sweepers (70/50%) had undesirable health and safety condition. Shortages or lack of use of personal protective equipment and psychological problems among these workers was evident more than other issues and need for substantial measures in this regard

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Introduction: Besides the occupational accident physical, psychological damages, and its economic losses, it can have a serious effect on the quality of working life. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the effects of occupational accidents on the quality of working life and its dimensions among workers in a steel manufacturing companies.   
Material and Methods: This case-control study was carried out among 100 workers (case) with an occupational accident history and 100 workers with no history of incident (control) in the production lines of a steel company during the period of 2012 to 2016. The study was conducted after matching the confounding variables such as age, work history, income level, etc. Data were collected using the NIOSH quality of work life questionnaire. For statistical analysis, SPSS 16 was used and χ2 and paired t-test statistical analysis were performed.
Results: According to the results of current study, the quality of work life average scores of the case (47.6±2.3) and control (49.5±2.3) groups was highly significant (p<0.001). Also, six out of eight dimensions of the quality of life was significantly affected by occupational accidents, but the highest and lowest influence was found on ergonomics and safety aspect, and the work and life aspect, respectively.
Conclusion: According to the result of this study, it can be concluded that occupational accidents are one of the important factors that influence the workers’ quality of work life. Therefore, quality of working life can be considered as a helpful tool in increasing job satisfaction, improving the efficiency and employability of employees and preventing accidents.

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Introduction: The accidents involving the transport of hazardous goods in ports have always been one of the human and environmental threats. The purpose of this research is to study the consequences of incidents involving dangerous goods by modeling and prediction of catastrophic consequences of these goods using the Software valid of management, so in addition to the affected area of the various outcomes of these goods, To provide the necessary management measures to reduce human and environmental toll on keeping dangerous goods in ports and warehouses to be paid.  
Material and Methods: The study performed from PHAST and ALOHA software in the container terminal in the region of Bandar Imam Khomeini and, to verify the consequences of styrene of toxicity of dangerous goods, was used.
Results: According to the results of this study, the extent of pollution coverage (the forbidden region) at least a radius of 79 meters and the best place for placement the Support groups are a radius of 106 meters, around the area dangerous goods. Finally, to offer management practices to avoid or reduce the consequences of possible sites and warehouses storing goods in the study area was dangerous.
Conclusion: In this study, methanol reservoir was introduced as the main focus of risk; therefore, the implementation of safety rules, eliminating mechanical failures, personal protection and education, and effective measures to prevent and fight fire are proposed for decreasing the probable losses and fatalities are necessary. As well as measures such as drainage design and appropriate land cover of hazardous goods and predictions for emergency evacuation with regard to atmospheric conditions (speed and wind direction) were recommended.

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Background: Industrial incidents are one of the major problems of today's societies. Studies in this field show that the main and most important cause of error occurrence is human factor. Therefore, the aim of this study was to identify and evaluate the risk of human error in the activities related to the operation of electrical installations of the Tehran Province Electricity Distribution Company.
Methods: This study is a qualitative and cross-sectional research was conducted by direct observation of the activities and documents, interview. Tasks and subtasks were selected and analyzed using Hierarchical task Analysis, (HTA).The results were presented in the form of  HTA. Finally, according to the instructions of SHERPA, the relevant worksheet was completed.
Results: The analysis of SHERPA worksheets showed that a total of 3399 errors were detected for 759 tasks as 39.57% of them were action errors, 32.4% review type, 7.32% recovery type, 19.64% communication type and 1.80% were selective errors. According to the results of risk assessment, 12.47% of the errors were unacceptable risks level, 59.57% were undesirable, and 20.2% were acceptable risks but need to be revised and the rest, 7.33% acceptable with no need for revision or safe ones.
Conclusion: According to the results, the most common type of error was action errors and in order to reduce this type of errors, using necessary corrective measures such as proper selection of people for occupations, training, monitoring, using smart machines, using tag out systems and checking at the suitable time and updating the instructions would be useful and effective countermeasures.

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Introduction: Stress is one of the major problems of living in industrial societies. Job and career issues are the most important causes of stress. Job stress is one of the important factors in causing psychological injury and illness in staff and decreasing productivity in organizations. Since human resources are among the most important assets of any organization, identification of the factors causing job stress is very crucial. Therefore current study aimed to investigate the causes of occupational stress in the staff of different units of the legal medicine centers in the Northwest Provinces.
 
Materials and Methods: A Descriptive-analytical study was conducted was designed and conducted on 166 employees of the various units of the legal medicines centers of Tabriz, Urmia, Ardebil and Zanjan cities by census statistical method during 2016-2017. Data were collected using questionnaires consist of demographic information and Cooper job stress questionnaire. The  collected  data  were  analyzed  by  means  of  SPSS  software  using  t-test  for  independent  groups,  ANOVA,  chi square, Pearson and  Spearman  correlation  coefficients, at the significant level of P<0.05.
 
Results: It was found that about 50% of the staff had moderate job stress and more than 12% had severe job stress. The comparison of mean job stress between healthy and ill individuals showed that the patients had a higher mean of job stress than healthy individuals, and this difference was statistically significant (P<0.001). The study of interference between work and life issue (family) also showed that the people whose work always interferes with their life issues had higher mean job stress than the other two groups and the difference was statistically significant (P<0.001). The result of this study also showed that there is a significant direct relationship between job stress and smoking (P<0.045), work interference and life issue (P<0.001), and a significant inverse relationship (P<0.044) with literacy.  Lower incomes, shifting the place of work, the heavy work, the ignorance of the managers to work problems, dealing directly with the people, the pressures due to the completion or working against deadlines, and the lack of hope for job promotion, respectively, are the factors causing stress in the organization.
 
Conclusion: Compared with employees of other organizations, the legal medicines staff seemed to have a much higher prevalence of stress. The organizational authorities could help staff to improve the quality of life and reduce occupational stress by creating the correct communication, desirable support and generating the appropriate environment for job activities.

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Introduction: Designing behavioral modification interventions for the use of personal protective equipment (PPE) warrants the audiences identification and analysis. This study aimed to determine the predictive factors for using (PPE) based on Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) constructs among workers of Iran Aluminum Factory, 2018.
Material and Methods: In this descriptive analytical study with cross-sectional method, a researcher-made questionnaire including demographic information, knowledge questionnaire and designed items based on the SCT construct, was fulfilled by 188 workers employed in production line of Iran Aluminum Factory in Arak. The collected data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, Chi-square and logistic regression analysis on SPSS 24. The significance level was set at P< 0.05.
Results: Among the participants, 46.8% (n=88) and 52.2% (n=100) of workers had moderate and high level of knowledge, respectively. Demographic variables such as marital status, educational level, income, age, work experience and employment status (p <0.05), as well as all SCT constructs (p <0.05) had a significant relationship with knowledge. Logistic regression analysis revealed that the level of education and employment status with probability of 80.6% and self-control, environment and self-efficacy of perceived barriers constructs, with a 64% probability could explained workers in high-knowledge group.
Conclusion: The present study revealed that the variables such as level of education, employment status, self-control, environment and self-efficacy of perceived barriers could be effective in designing educational interventions to improve workers’ knowledge on using personal protective equipment.

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Introduction: Carpet-weaving is one of the hard and harmful jobs, which affect the health of the workforce. Based on the previously conducted research, musculoskeletal disorders in the neck, shoulder, and lower back regions are common among carpet weavers. This study conducted to investigate the muscle activity of the shoulder and lower back regions in carpet weavers during work on traditional and ergonomic workstations by surface electromyography.
Material and Methods: 18 experienced male weavers with a mean age of 38 and mean weaving experience of 11.1 years participated in this study. Each weaver took part in two trails of 120 min. Surface EMG signal recordings were done during weaving for four muscles (bilaterally in trapezius and erector spine). The RMS and MPF values were extracted from the raw EMG signal to estimate muscle activity and fatigue.
Results: The results obtained from the 5-time intervals indicated the lowered MPF in the ergonomic workstation compared to the traditional one. The result of the mean RMS in most of the recorded times was lower in the ergonomic workstation than that in the traditional one.
Conclusion: According to the results of the study, the modified workstation was well-suited for trapezius muscles, and the traditional one had an advantage for the erector spine muscles.

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Introduction: The carpet industry is one of the most important handicrafts in Iran. This industry is one of the most difficult and harmful professions, in which the employees are often working in a workplace with non-ergonomic, unsafe, and unhealthy conditions. The present study aimed to address the modeling of the individual, job characteristics, and workplace conditions with the general health of carpet weavers through an ergonomic approach.
Material and Methods: The current study was a descriptive-analytic survey. The study population was female workers, who have had a minimum of one-year work experience and working in the workshops located in Meshginshahr city villages. The data collection tool was a combination questionnaire including, Goldberg’s questionnaire (GHQ-28), NIOSH questionnaire (disease history section), and questions about workplace conditions. The obtained data were entered into SPSS-17 software and analyzed statistically using statistical modeling based on the general linear model, multivariate and other statistical tests.
Results: Unpleasant condition was observed among the 37.4% of the examined, in terms of general health. Logistic regression modeling was used to investigate the internal and external factors of carpet weavers with their general health status. According to the model, general health has a significant relationship (p<0.05) with most of the internal factors such as age, marital status, history of disease, etc. However, there was no significant relationship with the workplace conditions.
Conclusion: According to the results of this study, it can be concluded that demographic and job variables are of the most important factors affecting the general health of carpet weavers. Although in the model, the workplace conditions did not show any significant relationship with the components of general health, interpreting these findings requires more studies. More studies are required objectively to identify the effect causes of the general health of carpet weavers (especially workplace conditions).

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Introduction: The noise could affect some aspects of human health, including the cognitive performance. In addition to sound pressure level and exposure time, the psychoacoustic features of noise may cause destructive effects on humans. A few recent studies have been conducted on effect of sound quality on cognitive performance. This study aims to find the noise loudness and sharpness levels as the most destructive effects on human cognitive performance.
Material and Methods: This was a cross-sectional study on 10 male students of Tehran University of Medical Sciences. The Noises were generated in two channels that the left channel produced the pink noise as a background noise. The pink noise loudness and sharpness were 19.7 sone and 2.49 acum, respectively. The right channel generated noises with different loudness and sharpness levels the noise loudness ranged from 8.87 to 67.9 sone and the noise sharpness ranged from 1.07 to 6.4 acum. Finally, ten noises with different loudness and sharpness were applied. The students were exposed to ten different types of noise and a silent condition. The Mathematical Problem Solving Task (MPST) test was performed to assess cognitive performance. The reaction time and the accuracy rate were measured after 5 minutes of noise exposure. Data were analyzed by SPSS (ver. 22). P< 0.05 was considered as significant level.
Results: The mean reaction time and the mean accuracy rate increased with the sharpness level.  However, alteration in the loudness and sharpness levels had no significant effect on the speed and accuracy of students. Performance speed increased in noise 3 with the highest loudness (L=67.9, SH=1.07) in comparison with the silent condition (p-value=0.05). The mean accuracy rate in exposure to the noise 9 reduced in comparison with silence (p-value=0.04)
Conclusion: Different levels of psychoacoustic features had no significant effect on the cognitive performance parameters. Although, the accuracy rate and the reaction time decreased in noises 9, the sharpest noise, and 3, the loudest noise, in comparison to the silence, respectively.

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Introduction: Fire safety in healthcare centers is crucial due to the limited evacuation capacity of the occupants and the necessity of not disrupting the operation in these centers. In this study, the fire risk of a public hospital was evaluated using the Fire Risk Assessment Method for Engineering (FRAME). Additionally, the factors affecting fire safety in the hospital were analyzed quantitavely, and fire control strategies were presented. 
Material and Methods: First, the fire risk assessment checklist was filled in all the hospital departments. Then, the values of the factors affecting fire safety were obtained. In the next step, the fire risk for the building, occupants and activities were estimated using Excel software-FRAME. Finally, control strategies and intervention measures were presented based on the value of these factors. 
Results: In the hospital under study, 22% of the departments posed an undesirable fire risk to the building and its property. On the other hand, 90% of the departments had risk levels that were undesirable for the occupants. The results of the initial risk (R0) showed that a balance between potential fire risk and risk acceptance can be established by implementing manual fire extinguishing systems and automatic detectors in all departments. 
Conclusion: ased on the condition of the hospital studied, a balance between potential fire risk level and risk acceptance level was not established. Therefore, there is a need for fire control measures, especially fire safety measures for the occupants. The results of this study can be useful for readers and experts in interpreting fire risk assessments and presenting detailed control measures based on the risk assessment and the value of the parameters.

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Introduction: Barriers play a critical role in mitigating risks and preventing catastrophic incidents in process industries. Human and Organizational Factors (HOFs) significantly influence the performance of safety barriers. This systematic review investigates existing frameworks and methods for assessing the impact of HOFs on safety barrier performance.
Material and Methods: A systematic search was conducted across the Scopus and Web of Science databases, following the PRISMA guidelines. The search aimed to identify studies presenting methodologies for evaluating the influence of HOFs on safety barrier performance in process industries. Data were subsequently extracted from the 16 included studies.
Results: The 16 studies included in this research presented various methods and frameworks examining the impact of HOFs on different types of safety barriers, including technical, operational, and human barriers, across industries such as oil and gas, chemical, and steel. Barrier and Operational Risk Analysis (BORA) emerged as the predominant framework among the studies. Research on operational and human barriers, which depend on human actions and procedures, frequently identified factors such as competence, training, communication, and supervision as key influencers of performance. In contrast, studies on technical barriers highlighted the importance of assessing factors such as maintenance management and procedural compliance.
Conclusion: This research highlights the critical role of HOFs in safety barrier performance within process industries. By systematically reviewing existing methodologies, the study identified their strengths and weaknesses. Findings underscore the need to account for uncertainties in expert judgments and the interplay between HOFs in evaluation models. The integration of fuzzy logic and Bayesian networks is proposed to enhance evaluation processes. Future research should prioritize the development of unified frameworks that address the limitations of current approaches while expanding their applicability across diverse industries.