This study aims to investigate a visual status and prevalence of visual problems in relation to eye safety and health amongst
visual display terminal (VDT) users in industries. A visual profile questionnaire (VPQ) and visual tests were conducted on workers
from 9 type of industries aged 20 to 60 years old in between October 2015 and June 2016. Workers with a history of exposure to VDT
more than 2 hours a day were used as a baseline for recruitment. Respondents who did not complete the visual profile questionnaires
(VPQ) and visual tests were excluded from the study. A total of 1214 respondents with mean aged of 39.33 ± 9.80 years have completed
the study. Most respondents show moderate to high in vision problems in related to VDT, low knowledge on visual hazards and policy
in relation to eye safety and health at the workplace and high percentage of not getting proper eye tests while serving their industries.
Visual Profile (VP) is needed as a key indicator to profile eye safety measures and the need for policy to help prevent eye problems and
improve employees’ productivity at workplace.
Concerns toward Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) in office building tend to risen since most people spend their working hours
indoors compare to outdoors. Exposure to indoor pollutants is a considerable problem. Therefore, there is a need to monitor IAQ in
order to deter further air quality deterioration in the workplace. The objective of this study is to determine the level of IAQ parameter
in selected academic office. The important IAQ parameters considered in this study were the air temperature, air velocity, relative
humidity, CO2, CO, TVOC, formaldehyde and respirable particulate matter. Measurements were conducted using commercial IAQ
instruments. From the study it was found that the levels of TVOC and respirable particulate matter were higher than the recommended
limit during photocopying activities. The formaldehyde, CO2 and CO level were observed to be acceptable for an office based on
Industry code of practice on indoor air quality (ICOP-IAQ 2010). Results shows that the temperature and air velocity are located at
acceptable value of 22-25 ºC and 0.1-0.1 m/s. Findings also show high relative humidity that exceeded the requirement level of 40%-
70%. Detail investigations are needed in order to provide certain guidance in improvement of IAQ conditions in office environment.
Ergonomics management is a process that will have a significant, positive effect on a company’s profits through cost reduction, quality improvement, performance improvement and productivity enhancement. Also known as human factors of human engineering, it basically describes the interaction between an employee and his/her job functions, with the emphasis being on reducing unnecessary physical stress in the workplace. The goal of ergonomics is to enable workers to be more effective by matching the requirements and demands of the job to the abilities and limitations of the workers rather than trying to force the workers to fit the job. This paper theoretically describes the benefits of understanding the ergonomics to the workplace. The components and activities required to implement ergonomics management also have been discussed. Besides that, the practical approach of ergonomics has been described by giving practical workplace improvement suggested by scholars. By approaching work practices (stretching, reaching, and sitting) from an ergonomically correct point of view, a worker actually becomes stronger, healthier and more productive.
In Malaysia, the number of Musculoskeletal Disorder (MSD) cases is increasing . Rapid Upper Limb Assessment
(RULA) is carried out in a physical paper form which is cumbersome and based on the complex nature and it should
consider human error. This project aims to create the RULA application for mobile devices featuring the android system
for this move will cut down the process time by more than half, create a more structured system and eliminate human
error wholly. The application will be designed on the App Inventor website which features a lot of handy tutorials
and takes the initiative to create a RULA mobile app for Android phones. The RULA mobile app for Android phones
is intended to make it easier and much more efficient to conduct a RULA analysis. Additionally, the analyses can be
conducted by minimally trained users, eliminating the need for highly trained technicians. RULA test is performed to
achieve accurate results and the mathematical processes will be programmed into the app so that the user will have a
friendly interface and will only be asked to tick boxes.
Peningkatan masalah muskulosketal di kalangan pemandu bas henti-henti akibat beban kerja fizikal semakin
menjadi perhatian. Oleh itu, tujuan kajian ini adalah untuk mengenalpasti jenis beban kerja fizikal yang dihadapi oleh
pemandu bas henti-henti di Kuala Lumpur dan kesannya terhadap prestasi fizikal mereka. Dalam kajian ini, kaedah
rakaman video digunakan untuk melihat dan merakamkan setiap beban kerja fizikal yang dihadapi oleh mereka
semasa memandu dan satu simulasi dibuat untuk melihat kesan beban kerja tersebut terhadap prestasi kerja mereka.
Keseluruhan hasil kajian menunjukkan beberapa jenis beban kerja fizikal yang telah dikenalpasti iaitu seperti menekan
butang suis pada panel kawalan, memberi tiket kepada penumpang, memandang cermin sisi sambil memasukkan
wang ke dalam tabung, menoleh untuk menjawab pertanyaan penumpang dan membelok sambil menarik tombol
isyarat. Demi kesinambungan kajian ini, satu kajian terhadap beban kerja mental perlu dibuat untuk mengetahui secara
menyeluruh beban kerja yang dihadapi oleh pemandu bas.
Malaysia’s palm oil industry is growing in complexity and successively to succeed on the global level by accounts for about 36% of the word production of palm oil [1]. But, Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) issues are still problematic areas that need to be addressed by all parties concerned in this industry. In the olden days, unlike construction or manufacturing industry, palm oil industry was green in OHS management system. However, due to stringent in the legislative enforcement in the past few years, it has lead some of the plantation companies to develop OHS management system, which are based on Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series (OHSAS), towards corporate sustainability. Sustainability is not about paying lip-service to the latest corporate buzzword; neither is it about superficially meeting minimum requirements for the sake of compliance. Rather, sustainability is a core value that lies at the heart of the companies’ business conduct. In practical terms, this means strive to operate with due consideration for the interest of all stakeholders by making the health and safety of all workers a priority. This paper describes the certification of OHSAS 18001 and MS 1722 in Genting Plantations Berhad (GENP) prove the commitment to sustainability by forming guiding principle on safety management. Further, this paper also demonstrates that the implementation of safety management can help to reduce the accident rate, especially fatal accident.
A road safety audit is a formal examination of an existing or future road or traffic project, or any project that interacts with road users, in which independent, qualified examiners look at the projects crash potential and safety performance. The objectives of road safety audit are to identify potential safety risks for road users and to ensure that measures to eliminate or reduce the risks are fully considered. Road safety audit works in two ways to ensure that safety is improved, namely by removing preventable crash producing elements at the design stage and by mitigating the effects of any remaining risks by the inclusion of suitable crash-reducing elements. The present paper focuses on providing a preliminary or basic understanding of the Road safety Audit. Later the discussion is preceded further to the important elements and the various stages in the Road Safety Audit. Finally, the conclusion focuses briefly on the implementation of the Road Safety Audit, which can only be successful if the members of the Audit Team possess sufficient specialized professional knowledge and other virtues.
Indoor air quality (IAQ) can be described as the quality of air weather inside or surrounding the buildings and structures
which are associated with the health and comfort ability of occupants in the buildings. The level of IAQ in buildings can be influenced
by microbial contaminants activities, chemicals exposure and allergens that seriously can create health effects to the building’s
occupants. In the present study, the effect of environmental factors such as temperature and relative humidity on the optimum growth
of Aspergillus niger (A. niger) was investigated. The study revealed that the optimal fungal growth of up 43mm in diameter was
evidenced under room temperature of 30oC at the end of a five day incubation period. However, the relative humidity from 40% to 90%
applied is able to support the growth of the A.niger. The relative humidity of 90% shows the optimal effect where 56 mm of diameter
growth happened after 5 days of incubation. The significant finding to emerge from this study is that environmental factors such as
temperature and relative humidity do affect the growth of A.niger. The optimal temperature and relative humidity for A.niger to grow
are 30oC and 90%, respectively.
Company A is a brownfield refinery that had been in service for over 25 years and has its own system to generate GOX for its needed utility usage. Noting of the hazards of GOX and in consideration of an aged refinery, this research is of the intent to evaluate the risk of GOX in the aspect of personnel and process safety; and to provide recommendation or mitigations planning with regards to Company A’s existing hardware through Bow Tie review. The analysis was done taking into consideration the data compiled as well as the inherited Process Safety Assessment (PSA) findings of Company A that served as secondary data to this research. It was observed that Company A personnel are well versed with the risk and hazards of GOX system and through the plant rejuvenation and material upgrade works, the hazards were mitigated to a lower risk within the risk matrix. The implementation and upgrade works had served to add more barriers to the left side of the bow tie as well as ensuring that the aged complex is well equipped with needed safeguarding strategies (from inherent safer design, passive & active safeguarding and procedural controls) to avoid the occurrence of potential oxygen fire or explosion incident.
There were a number of accidents reported throughout the implementation of the National Services Training
Programme (NSTP) since 2004 until 2012. The National Services Training Department (NSTD) is responsible for
the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) aspects in the NSTP camps. The study was conducted with its objective
to compare the levels of OSH audit compliance at NSTP between 2011 and 2012. A cross sectional method was
used, involving a total of 67 randomly selected NSTP camps. The data analysis was conducted on two types of
audit checklists using SPSS version 2.1. The r-value of 0.197 obtained indicates a weak relationship between the
document review and physical training element. The p-value of 0.118, meanwhile, shows that there is no statistically
significant correlation between the results of document review and physical training element. Most of the elements
show an increased percentage of compliance as a result of initiatives taken by the Camp Training Management and
the Camp Operator. Despite an improved compliance level seen from 2011 to 2012, NSTD should look into certain
critical elements considered high risk by the regulatory requirements. NSTD should also continue with its initiatives
to enhance safety and health aspects in NSTP camps not only for the benefit of the trainees but also for themselves.
The study objective is to examine the effects of the identified attributes (i.e. employee characteristics and ergonomics) that influences the chronic back pain disabilities acquired and benefits awarded via the recognition of workplace relatedness. As these factors are considered in work- related chronic back pain, we hypothesized that the ascertainment of work relatedness would depend on employees’ workplace conditions (poor ergonomic practices) and innate personal conditions (excellent pre-existing medical health). Two set of data was collected from a registry owned by a social security organization in 2012. Factor analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze the data. As predicted, workplace conditions and employees’ pre- existing medical health status mediated occupational back pain to develop disability and monetary benefit relationships. In conclusion, the results support the importance of obtaining workplace evidence and employees’ pre- existing medical health status that produces stronger relationship in terms of the amount of benefits to be given compared to the lesser effects on disability. Both models with different samples showed consistent SEM results. The proposed model would be applicable in the heterogenous Asian setting and that occupational back pain consensus is the key element in providing effective social security protection.
Safety behaviour is important in preventing industrial accident.
Safety leadership attribute by the supervisors is one of the determinants of safety
behaviour among the employees. This study aimed to determine the influence of
employer’s safety leadership towards worker’s safety behaviour within Small and
Medium Enterprises (SME)-Manufacturing in Negeri Sembilan. Three independent
variables representing safety leadership namely safety motivation, safety concern
and safety policy were selected whilst safety compliance and safety participation
were the dimensions used to measure safety behaviour. Self-administered
questionnaire were distributed and answered by 210 employees of Negeri
Sembilan’s SME-Manufacturing. The results revealed that safety concern and safety
policy had significantly influenced safety compliance. Whilst, safety motivation and
safety concern determined the workers’ safety participation. No significant influence
found by safety motivation towards safety compliance as well as safety policy
towards safety participation. Safety concern was the important component of safety
leadership as it consistently explained the variance in all dimensions of safety
behaviour.
Malaysia has the highest road fatality risk (per 100,000 populations) compared to other ASEAN nations and more than 50% of the road accident fatalities involving motorcyclists. Hence, this becomes the leading cause of death among young people, aged 15–29 years. The most common cause of fatalities involving motorcyclist is the head injury., This present study aimed to evaluate the knowledge, attitude, and practice on helmet usage among secondary school students in Kuantan. A descriptive cross-sectional design (two months of data collection) was used in this study. Questionnaires were distributed to 200 participants from two schools in Kuantan. The main finding of this study suggests that common reason for the participants to wear a helmet is that ‘it can save a life’. Besides that, the poor practice regarding helmet usage was also found as only 4.5% of them wore the helmet all the time. However, the overall result showed that most of the participants have a good knowledge and positive attitude regarding utilization of helmet.
There are several alternative sampling and analytical methods available for the determination of respirable
crystalline silica exposure among workers. The commonly used ones are, (1) NIOSH Manual Analytical Method
No.7500(NMAM 7500) which is Silica, crystalline, by X-ray difractometer via filter deposition(NIOSH 2003), and
(2) MDHS 101 (Methods for the Determination of Hazardous Substances (MDHS) Guidance No.101: Respirable
crystalline silica in respirable airborne dust). The aim of this study is to compare applicability of respirable crystalline
silica sampling and analysis between method MDHS 101 and NMAM 7500. Laboratory procedures will be performed
strictly based on MDHS 101 and NMAM 7500. Both methods apply X-ray diffraction as analytical technique with
many variations on sampling techniques and laboratory preparations. Quality assurance values such as detection
limits, accuracy and precision are derived from both data and will be compared to determine which of the method
establishes better quality assurance. The method which establishes better quality assurance will be recommend to be
used in Malaysian respirable crystalline silica monitoring programme. The strength of this research lies on its potential
to provide local capabilities in analysis of respirable crystalline silica in Malaysian setting.
The aim of this paper is to share views on the Safety and Health Performance Indicators (SPIs) for the Small
Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to assist SMEs in improving their business performance, growth and resilience through
effective Safety and Health Performance Management framework. Traditionally, industries are relying on the “lagging”
indicators of safety and health performance. Lagging indicators are limited due to the reactive approach and to some
extent, they create complacency among the industries which do not have any accidents or to the SMEs which face
low risks at work. As a result to their limitation, there has been a move in using “leading” indicators in measuring
safety and health performance in the industries. SMEs are important to Malaysia. However their contribution to the
workplace accident statistics is equally substantial. They are the major contributors to 80% of the total accidents.
Hence, effective Safety and Health Performance Indicators is indeed crucial to assist SMEs in measuring their safety
performance to enable them to move forward in achieving safety culture which is good for their business to stay strong
and resilient in this new business millennium.
Geographically, Malaysia is situated in the equatorial region, thus having a climate of hot and humid throughout the
year. Effect of heat stress and physical work load at construction industry need to be investigated because of the high number of
accidents. Thus, perception of physical workload and heat stress by the construction workers in Malaysia needed to be investigated
and documented. The aim of this paper is to establish a set of questionnaires containing the item generation regarding on physical
workload and the heat stress perception of construction workers. Physical workload factors such as fatigue, risks, concentration,
work rhythm, responsibility, satisfaction, and autonomy are inserted as the items in assessing the physical workload. While heat
stress are assessed using heat risk factors such as temperature, humidity, heat radiation, air movement, workload, clothing and
acclimatisation. A questionnaire has been developed resulted from various reviewing of literatures on physical workload and heat
stress and better suited to the Malaysia working environment.
This retrospective study was conducted at the audiology clinic of UKM in the year 2000. It was intended to detect the effect of walkman on the hearing system of its users and to investigate whether distortion product otoacoustic emission test can provide an early and reliable sign of cochlear damage or not. Distortion product otoacoustic emission test helps to determine the function of outer hair cell. Outer hair cells get damaged with exposure to loud sound, drugs and aging. Thirty subjects (20 in the study group and 10 in the control group), between the ages of 19-25 years, who fulfilled all the criteria of selection, were investigated. There were two sets of criteria (general and specific). Anyone, in the control or study group, failing in any of these criteria was excluded from the study. According to the general criteria, it was essential for all the subjects to have clean ear canals, normal hearing at all the frequencies (250Hz- 8000Hz), normal middle ear function (Type A tympanogram), no middle ear problem, not used/using any ototoxic medicine, no family history of hearing loss, no history of ear surgery, not exposed to any form of loud noise like disco, concert, F1 racing or gun shooting. According to the special criteria it was essential for the subjects in the control group to have never used a walkman and those in the study group must have been using a walkman for at least 6 months. Comparison of distortion product emission levels between control and study groups revealed that emissions were significantly lower in the study group, across all the frequencies, suggesting outer hair cell damage in the walkman users. These differences reached level of statistical significance (p<0.05) at 2, 4, 6 and 8kHz. Using walkman at an intensity unsafe for hearing and a duration longer than recommended is suspected for the outer hair cell damage in our study group. Those using walkman for longer duration and higher intensity manifested much lower emission levels. Our study supports the literature that distortion product emission test is a much sensitive test than pure-tone audiometry, as it can detect cochlear damage long before it appears in an audiogram. It is recommended that people who are exposed to loud noise regularly should be monitored with distortion product emission test. It is suggested that the use of walkman.
Study site: Audiology clinic, Pusat Perubatan Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
According to annual reports from the Social Security Organization (SOCSO), between years 2009 and 2011,
metal industry has the highest reported number of accidents compared to the other manufacturing industry in small
and medium enterprises (SMEs). Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the actual causes of problems that
lead to the accidents involving metal industries within SMEs. In this study, a checklist through site visits was used to
collect the data. The overall results revealed that the main causes of accidents are; organization failure, human factor,
machine failure and surrounding environments.
Working for a minimum of 8 hours, 6 days a week might have exposed the workers of public transportation to
high noise risks. However, occupational exposures in their workplace have not been adequately characterized and
identified. Assessment of occupational noise exposure among workers at five public transportation stations was made
using Sound Level Meter and through questionnaire survey. The data obtained was combined to estimate the work
shift exposure level and health impacts to the workers by using statistical analysis. The respondents participated in the
survey to identify the symptoms of noise-induced hearing loss and other health-related problems. Results of the study
indicated that occupational noise exposure among workers for Mean Continuous Equivalent Level, Leq= 76.17 dB(A)
presents small risks of developing a hearing disability. Some of the workers show symptoms of noise-induced hearing
loss and are annoyed by the sources of noise present at the public transportation.
Pesticides are commonly used for pest control in oil palm
plantations. The knowledge, attitude and practices (KAP) while handling pesticides
may potentially result in adverse health effects among the estate workers. The aim of
this study is to determine the KAP of pesticides used and the capacity of selfreporting
health conditions among workers in palm oil plantations. A crosssectional
study was conducted to investigate the KAP and its self-reporting health
symptoms by using questionnaires and face-to-face interviews to 120 male estate
workers who use pesticides in their daily work routine in the oil palm plantation. At
least 85.8% of respondents had a good knowledge of pesticide used, 46.7% of them
indicated neutral level of attitude on the pesticides’ usage, and 68.3% of them
demonstrated a good practice while handling mixture of pesticides. Overall, there is
a significant association between the practices of pesticide usage with the selfreporting
health symptoms, such as dizziness, excessive vision, cough,
nausea/vomiting, redness of skin, difficulty in breathing, skin rashes, blurred vision,
excessive sweating and hand tremor. More than half of the estate workers indicated
a moderate to good knowledge, attitude and practices level of pesticide handling in
oil palm plantations. This study suggests that the self-reporting symptoms are real
and not over-reporting by workers. The increase in KAP of pesticides usage among
these workers have highlighted the necessity to improve the traditional field training
method of safe handling of pesticide to a sustainable field practical-based learning.
The latter training approach is to engage theory into practice.