Journal of Health and Safety at Work

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Introduction: Individuals’ jobs performance is one the most important factors in industries and organizations. The aim of the present study was to investigate the simultaneous effect of exposure to noise, lighting and heat stress on the workers’ job performance.
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Material and Method: In this analytical-descriptive study, 30 employees of the auto parts manufacturer, in Tehran city, were chosen by simple random sampling. By controlling and limiting confounding factors, the simultaneous effect of noise, lighting and heat stress on the participants’ job performance was investigated, using tow series of mental and manual testes. Data were analyzed by SPSS software version 18, using descriptive statistic, ANOVA and Tukey testes and also person correlation coefficient.
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Result: The results showed that by increasing the noise and heat stress (P = 0.046, r=0.344) and decreasing of lighting (P =0.008, r = -0.472), the required time for performing the Minnesota placement test has been gone up. Moreover, the result revealed that by increase in noise and heat stress (P = 0.007, r = 0.478) and decrease in lighting (P=0.003, r = 0.523) the required time for competing hand tool dexterity test has been also increased at surface and mid level.
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Conclusion: Finding of the present research manifested that increase in noise and heat stress and also reduction in lighting lessen the speed of manual tests and time and accuracy of mathematical calculations. Therefore this result confirm the effects of various environmental factors on individuals’ job performance, in a way that by variation of different environmental factors, time of manual test and time and accuracy of mental tests would be changed.

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Introduction: Workplace design is one of the factors that can influence comfort, performance, productivity and the health status of employees. The effects of this factor on human’s productivity and performance are studied in the domain of ergonomics. The impact of workplace design on workers’ productivity and performance can be determined by investigation of the quality of the design. The main purpose of the present study was to investigate the influence of workplace design on productivity of the bank clerks.

Material and Method: Samples in this cross-sectional study were comprised of 150 employees of 22 different branches of a bank in Tehran city. Data collection tools included demographic questionnaire and a questionnaire related to the effects of workplace design on employees’ productivity, developed by Hameed and colleagues. Correlation and regression statistical tests were used in order to analyze data.

Result: According to the results, the mean (±SD) for age and job tenure of participants were 37.2(±6) and 13(±7) years, respectively. Of the surveyed demographic features, a significant relationship was observed between age and scores belonging to the temperature and furniture (P-value<0.05). In addition, there was a significant association between employees’ productivity and the noise (P-value=0.044) and spatial arrangement of environment (P-value=0.048).

Conclusion: Overall, appropriate and high quality design of work environment can improve productivity of bank clerks. In other words, employees’ productivity can be enhanced by comfortable and ergonomic design of working environment and also by considering their needs.

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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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Introduction: Evaluating environmental risks in the oil and gas industry is essential to prevent irreparable damage to the environment. Using classical methods for prioritizing environmental risks does not achieve high-reliable results. Therefore, the aim of this study is to minimize the limitations of classical methods in a typical oil and gas production zone, by using fuzzy logic and Multi Attribute Decision Making (MADM) approach.  
Material and Methods: After forming an identification and assessment team including experienced experts from different organizational units in a region of exploitation of oil and gas, values of each risk factor (likelihood of occurrence, severity and detectability) related to identified environmental risks are determined according to their qualitative opinions represented by linguistic variables. Relative weights of the risk factors are calculated by applying the group Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) in a fuzzy environment on expert opinions. Then, fuzzy aggregation in the linear form by considering the weight of the risk factors and a method that is developed based on the center of gravity are employed in evaluation and ranking of the risks.
Results: In this study, the severity factor has the most important contribution in risk assessment compared to the other risk factors, since it has the highest relative weight. Raw sewage aspect resulted from absence of appropriate treatment system has the highest priority and spilling over of acid that is caused by chiller cleaning stands at the second position in the identified environmental risks.
Conclusion: The results demonstrate that although the proposed methodology requires greater time than classical methods, it is able to determine the risk ranking more practically because of minimizing the limitations of classical methods: high sensitivity to judgmental errors, considering some risks in the same index group and ignoring uncertainty in experts’ opinions. Proposed method is a proper alternative for classical environmental risk assessment technique, and capable of prioritization and evaluation risks in terms of safety and health.

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Introduction: Many studies, especially in recent years, have evaluated and controlled the occupational heat stress in Iran using environmental indices. However, so far, no comprehensive study has been conducted to review and classify these studies. Therefore, this study aimed to review and investigate the occupational studies performed by environmental heat stress indices in Iran.
Material and method:  In the present study, the published articles from 2000 to 2016 were searched using Persian and English keywords including heat stress, heat strain, hot condition, warm condition, occupational health, thermal environment and Iran. Search of articles was performed in databases such as Web of Science, Google Scholar, PubMed, Scopus, Science Direct, SID, Magiran, Civilica, Iran Medex, Barakatkns and Irandoc. In total, 323 articles were found and 134 articles of them, based on the exclusion criteria, were selected and included in this study. 
Results: Based on the results, most numbers of the studies, with 93.3 percent of the total researches related to published article, have been carried out between years of 2010 to 2016. As well as, most of studies with 61.9 percent were related to the indoor industrial environments. Most of studies were also performed in cities of Isfahan with 31.08 percent, Tehran with 16.89 percent, and Assaluyeh with 11.48 percent, respectively. As well as, WBGT index with 76 percent and the UTCI and PHS indices with 0.6 percent had the highest and lowest usage in all environments and industries, respectively. In addition, the results showed that WBGT index had most usage in industries of melting and casting with 15.7 percent, petroleum with 8.3 percent, and outdoor small occupations with 8.3 percent, respectively. Based on the results, the industries of the refinery, steel, glasswork, melting and casting, mines, and ship repairs have the highest mean values of WBGT index, respectively.
Conclusion: The results showed the need to more attention of researchers for conducting studies in outdoor environments, in different cities of Iran, on development and validation of novel heat stress indices, and on implementation and evaluation of control measures in the environments with high heat stress.

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Introduction: 1,3-Butadiene is a carcinogenic compound that can be emitted to the atmosphere from several sources like petrochemical industry. One way to determine the level of carcinogenic and health effects of respiratory exposure to pollutants in the workplace is to use risk assessment methods. The aim of this study was to comparative assessment of carcinogenic risk of respiratory exposure to 1,3-Butadiene in a petrochemical industry by the US Environmental Protection Agency and Singapore Health Department methods.
Material and method:  This cross-sectional study was carried out in 2018 in a petrochemical industry that producing copolymer ABS (acrylonitrile, butadiene, styrene) in Iran. Occupational exposure to 1,3-Butadiene was measured according to the NIOSH 1024 method. Cancer risk assessment was done according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) and Singapore semi-quantitative methods.
Results: The average occupational exposure to 1,3-Butadiene during work shift among all participants was 560.82 ± 811.36 µg.m^-3 (0.253 ± 0.367 ppm) and in all cases was below the occupational exposure limit. The average lifetime cancer risk in USEPA method in the present study was 2.71 × 10^-3, Also in this method 82.2% of all exposed workers were in the definite carcinogenic risk level and 17.8% were in the probable carcinogenic risk level. The results of the Singapore health department method showed that 91.2% of all subjects were in the probable carcinogenic risk level and 8.8% were in the definite risk level.
Conclusion: The findings of the present study showed that the results of the Singapore semi quantitative risk assessment method are not in good agreement with the results of the quantitative risk assessment method proposed by the US Environmental Protection Agency. Therefore, given the high accuracy and thoroughness of the US Environmental Protection Agency's risk assessment methodology as a worldwide reference method for assessing the carcinogenic and health risk of exposure to chemicals, it is recommended to use this method instead of the Singapore method in future studies.

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Introduction: The main purpose of this study was to identify and evaluate environmental problems and their ranking and to determine the conceptual model of environmental impact assessment (EIA) in industrial parks. Accordingly.
Material and Methods: In this study, environmental infrastructure issues were classified into five sections. The decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) technique was also employed to establish the relationships between the criteria. Moreover, the analytic network process (ANP) was utilized to determine their weight.
Results: Examining the internal relationships between the variables correspondingly revealed that cultural and economic criteria were the most influential. On the other hand, the biological criterion was very effective. The ANP results also showed that the “low share of environmental investment” as an indicator was an economic criterion with a normal weight of 0.80, which was of utmost importance among the other defined cases.
Conclusion: It was concluded that the definition of conceptual models in EIA processes can make it possible to examine and analyze the criteria and indicators affecting evaluation processes.

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Introduction: Even with the rising number of diseases and their severity as well as occupational-environmental accidents occurring within organizations, most managers do not still care about the profitability of implementing the health, safety, and environment (HSE) management system requirements.
Material and Methods: Accordingly, the integration of the HSE costs calculated through engineering-economics relations was investigated to evaluate the given profitability using a different approach. For this purpose, costs of diseases and occupational-environmental accidents were computed (n=2207), and then lack of their spending was considered as system income. By determining the correlation and calculating the P-value as well as the associated costs, the regression model was subsequently fitted. Investment in the HSE management system was further examined, and return on investment (ROI) and net present value (NPV) were calculated. Afterwards, the relationship between ROI and disease recurrence rates together with occupational-environmental accidents was explored.
Results: health costs with a P-value=0.03 had a significant effect on disease recurrence rates, so that the incidence rate was equal to 1.432 e-15 as it increased by one unit. The costs of accidents with a P-value=0.048 also had a substantial impact on the occurrence of occupational accidents and a growth by one unit, wherein the accident recurrence rates were 9.183 e. However, no significant association was found between environmental accidents and disease incidence rates.
Conclusion: The results implied that investment in HSE management systems is not just in accordance with implementing profitability requirements, but it should be targeted and based on priorities, influenced by the results of examining root causes of diseases and accidents as well as assessing risks facing organizations.

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Introduction: Comprehensive and reliable performance evaluation of organizations has always been one of the main concerns of stakeholders and managers of organizations. Performance evaluation can raise awareness of the progress made in improving the performance of any organizations, especially in the field of health, safety, and environment (HSE) and thus, create the necessary motivation and opportunity to improve the quality of HSE performance. National quality awards and excellence approaches emphasizes the fact that survival in global competition requires improving the performance of organizations on a global scale. The EFQM enterprise excellence model, as a comprehensive tool with a comprehensive approach to all aspects of organizations, helps managers to understand their organization well.
Material and Methods: This study was conducted in Tehran Industrial Group in 2018, during which the performance of this industrial group in the design and construction of one of the dams in the south of the country was evaluated and analyzed. The data collection tool was a standard self-assessment questionnaire based on the EFQM enterprise excellence model, the validity and reliability of which was tested by Cronbach’s alpha coefficient at 0.971.
Results: In terms of “enablers” criteria, the leadership dimension, with a score of 76.36, obtained the best percentage of scores, while the processes criterion with a score of 72.04 had the lowest percentage of scores. This dimension, along with staff, resources, and partnership dimensions, needs to be improved. In the field of “results” criteria, the key performance results with 79.77 points had the best percentage and the customer result dimension with a score of 69.13 had the lowest, indicating that the organization should improve these sectors.
Conclusion: The results indicated the suitable status of the organization in terms of the criteria of excellence model. The results of this model are generally used for systematic analysis of the organization in order to achieve a comprehensive view of the organization and its challenges.

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Introduction: Due to uncertainties regarding the risks of engineered nanomaterials for human health and the environment, different organizations and researchers have developed various management frameworks and assessment tools to mitigate hazards during the procedures and applications of engineered nanomaterials. However, most of these techniques do not meet all the individual requirements. This study provides a review and introduction to the techniques developed for the management of safety, health, and environmental risks associated with engineered nanomaterials.
Material and Methods: In order to find pertinent documents on the safe handling of engineered nanomaterials, a search was conducted using the following keywords: “Engineered nanomaterials”, “Framework”, “Tool”, “Risk management”, “Occupational exposure”, “Environment”, “Risk assessment”, and “Nanotechnology”. The search was conducted on various databases, including Scopus, Web of Science, NIOSH, ECHA, and ISO. Among the search results, tools and frameworks that specifically focus on the safety, health, and environmental risk management or assessment of engineered nanomaterials were selected.
Results: Among the search results, 17 frameworks and 11 developments in the field of managing occupational, environmental, and toxicological risks associated with engineered nanomaterials were discussed. Various frameworks and tools for identifying, evaluating, and managing the potential risks of engineered nanomaterials vary in terms of their scope, goals, risk assessment approaches, and output, offering diverse applications.
Conclusion: Various tools and frameworks, each with unique properties, applications, and limitations, can assist organizations in achieving their goals related to safety, health, and environmental issues in the field of nanotechnology. Currently, there is no consensus on the optimal approach for assessing the risks of nanomaterials, underscoring the necessity for additional research, development, and collaboration in this field.