Work-related Musculoskeletal Disorders (WMSDs) are common occupational injuries among workers in the construction industry. Epidemiological studies indicated that WMSDs include neck pain, lower back pain, knee pain, leg fatigue as well as ankle and feet discomfort. The objectives of this study are to identify the WMSDs experienced by the workers during construction works and discuss the causes of those WMSDs. Subjective approach associated with modified Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire (NMQ) was applied to identify the symptoms of WMSDs. A case study was conducted in several construction sites situated at the southern region of Peninsular Malaysia. During the study, 37 construction workers with different age and scope of works were interviewed to determine the WMSDs that they have experienced. Based on distributed questionnaire, almost all workers experienced pain in the region of lower back, upper back and biceps. These pains were contributed by manipulation of heavy load and high force exertion. Based on discussed causations, control measures via engineering controls method and administrative controls method were proposed to alleviate the risk of WMSDs among construction workers.
Fire emergencies are threat to the occupants of a residential college. Some of the Malaysian residential colleges were built in the 1970s. Back then, the compliancy to Uniform Building By-law 1984 was not entirely practiced. This study aims to evaluate fire safety measures in selected residential colleges of a Malaysian University, which were built before 1984. This includes occupants’ level of awareness and knowledge of the occupants regarding fire safety measures. This study was conducted in selected residential colleges, built before 1984, which were named as A, B, C, and D Colleges. One new college building was selected to be the control variable, the E College. Survey questionnaires were given to 401 respondents to obtain information regarding the fire safety awareness and knowledge. Fire safety inspections were conducted to determine the level of fire safety protection systems in colleges and the documentation of emergency response plan were reviewed. From the study, the level of fire safety awareness among the occupants were higher compared to their fire safety knowledge. Fire safety inspection result indicated that overall buildings inspected complies with the local regulation while safety documentation reviews were satisfactorily adequate. Overall, the score for fire safety measures in all selected colleges were sufficient and in good condition. This study is significant for those in the field of safety and health practice pertaining to fire safety engineering and regulations, to plan for better and more efficient fire hazard and risk assessment.
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.
Workers in the health care industry and related occupations are at risk of occupational exposure to blood borne pathogens, including human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), hepatitis B virus (HBV), hepatitis C virus (HCV), and other potentially infectious agents. The primary route of occupational exposure to blood borne pathogens is accidental percutaneous (through the skin) injury. Health care workers handle sharp devices and equipment such as hypodermic and suture needles, intravenous blood collection devices, phlebotomy devices, and scalpels. Health care workers with the most involvement in direct patient care e.g., nursing staff, sustain the highest proportion of reported NSIs (needle stick injuries).
Recent development in industrialization and global economy has contributed to the increased number of workplace
injuries and accidents. Safety culture has been seen as a central medium to curb the worrying trend of workplace
accidents. The term of safety culture has emerged from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986 and the concept has
been widely used until today. However, the conceptualization of safety culture suffers from several major drawbacks
such as no definite understanding of how safety culture is being defined and measured. This paper hypothesized that
higher levels of safety culture in the workplace will display lower numbers of accidents. Due to this concern, this
paper seeks to provide a clear conceptualization of safety culture, dimensions used to measure it and common research
methodology used in the previous safety research.
The aim of this paper is to identify, review and carry out comparison to seven guidelines where the main focus is on its risk
assessment elements related to confined space activities. This is due to lack of the specific approach of the Legislation for confined
space such as entry procedure requirements, risk assessment method, existing practice of risk assessment is too general and additional
references are required for conducting risk assessment which would lead to poor response from industries. The selected guidelines will
be summarized on its requirements, followed by a review of each guideline and finally the comparison of Legislations will be carried
out. The results from the study would be used as a contribution factor to promote an ideal method in developing an effective risk
assessment tools for working safely in confined space. Furthermore, several literatures which have been referred could give additional
input for developing the risk assessment tools.
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.
Local exhaust ventilation (LEV) is used in industries to capture contaminants such as gases, dusts, mists, vapours or fumes out of workstations to protect occupants’ exposure to contaminants. LEV is allocated and installed by employers, however it doesn’t work accordingly. LEV design is often overlooked and underappreciated. Effectiveness of LEV system can be achieved if more attention is focused to proper design of LEV system. To solve this issue, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) can be performed. CFD is a software tool to predict and simulate fluid dynamic phenomena. CFD is used to forecast or reconstruct the behaviour of an engineering product under assumed or measure boundary conditions. However, CFD is just a prediction tool, which can lead to inaccuracy of predicting airflow due to problems with pre-processing, solver and post-processing with parameter from actual experimental results. Therefore, validation is needed to help minimizing percentage error of CFD methods. In this research, measurements of airflow parameter of LEV system at National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Bangi, Selangor were conducted. Control Speed panel found at NIOSH Bangi, which is used to increase or decrease speed of fan, was performed using Control Speed of 20%, 40% 60% and 80%. Upon validation, average absolute error obtained from four different control speeds ranges from 3.372% to 4.862%. Validity of CFD modelling is acceptable, which is less than 5% and good agreement is achieved between actual experimental results and CFD simulation results. Therefore, it can be concluded that CFD software tool can be performed to simulate air velocity in LEV system. CFD methods can save labour costs and time consumption when it is used during earliest stage of LEV design, before actual construction is implemented. The outcome of this paper can be used as a baseline for factories equipped with LEV system to protect occupants’ exposure to contaminants.
The research is focus generally to identify and investigate the issue of accessible design for wheelchair users on selected Keretapi Tanah Melayu Berhad (KTM) commuter stations in the city of Kuala Lumpur. The objectives are to ensure that the design of accessibility is comply with the law, regulations, standard requirements and guidelines; to understand the recent condition and their needs in commuter stations and to allow their secure equal rights and opportunities as others. The research began by gaining reliable information through literature study and a checklist for building audit was prepared to evaluate the accessibility. A building access survey was carried out on selected stations which enclosed three main stages to show the pattern of passengers’ path. Stage 1: From the road to the ticket counter. Stage 2: From the ticket counter to the platform. Stage 3: From the platform to the train. A series of structured questionnaire was also constructed to study and get a feedback from selected target of users. Result of findings in this study had been analyzed to assist the management and the station concerned in upgrading their station facilities to a comfortable, accessible, friendly and safe environment in order to encourage more users, including disabled persons to benefit from it.
Lack of safety awareness among quarry workers caused a number of accidents in quarry industries. The objective
of this study is to gauge the awareness level towards safety among quarry workers. A questionnaire was distributed
randomly among quarry workers in Pahang, Terengganu and Kelantan. The questionnaire consists of 6 questions
regarding safety at workplace. Results revealed that 56.9% of the respondents agreed and totally agreed for the health
and safety suggestions made to be given consideration and used. As many as 79.3% respondents admitted that they
obeyed all the safety rules stated at the workplace and 86.3% respondents said that they always focused and gave
full attention while completing their task. A high percentage of 88% of the respondents agreed for all accidents
to be reported to responsible persons while 77.6% respondents agreed for all personal protective equipment to be
used suitable with the task given and 86.2% respondents answered that they performed their task following the safe
operation procedures provided by the company.
Working in a safe working posture is a necessity to enhance occupational health of industrial workers. Poor
working posture may lead to injuries, discomfort and fatigue to the workers. The objective of this study is to survey the
postures practised by the Malaysian industrial workers. A questionnaire survey was performed among 282 Malaysian
industrial workers in 10 different industries. From the answered questionnaire, it was observed that shoulder at chest
level (30.1%), back in a bent forward (33.3%) and lifting heavy load (44.7%) are the major work postures practised by
most of industrial workers. This survey identifies that working with shoulder and hand at chest level and back region
moderately bent forward is the main working posture practice by worker. Workers also reported lifting load below 5 kg
at the workstation. This survey recommended for industrial workers to be aware of the comfortable working posture
to avoid injury.
Work shift has been shown to correlate with accident rates. Understanding of such correlation is pertinent especially among emergency response personnel since the decisions that they make determines not only the outcome of their responses but also the risks of accidents to themselves. A questionnaire data derived study used together with a semi quantitative risk analysis method was adopted to estimate the levels of accident risks between firefighters working on two work shifts. Two hundred and forty eight Malaysia’s Fire and Rescue Department firemen from 24 fire stations working on shifts were selected as respondents. The accident rate among firefighters in year 2006 was 52.8 %. Results showed that the Accident Risk Index (ARI) among firefighters working the 24 hours shift was higher (ARI = 3.14) compared with those in the 12 hours shift (ARI = 2.98). However, there were no significant difference in overall severity of the accidents between the two shifts (p>0.05). The difference in risk levels was attributed to the difference in the likelihood of accident occurrence.
Indoor air quality has been a major public concern recently. Several health effects are related to this problem.
Findings from several studies have shown MVAC system as the main contributor for IAQ problem. Good practice of
maintenance and servicing is important to maintain MVAC system, especially the filter. Good air filtration for MVAC
system is needed to make sure adequate air is received by the occupants. This paper illustrated a recent study of air
filtration for MVAC system especially for several industries that used MVAC system in their premises. This paper also
proposed an air filtration study for a better air quality. Several Acts and Regulations related to Safety and Health were
identified to create the framework for the proposed study. Air filtration technique was used in this preliminary study
to set up guidelines to create safe and clean indoor spaces for workers and occupants.
Local Exhaust Ventilation (LEV) is required to absorbed the chemical and at the same time to maintain the air quality. This
study is purposed to create new design of LEV system that believe can remove air contaminants in the chemical store buildings. This
research was conducted using two (2) types of LEV system which are 4 air-inlets LEV (type 1) and 3 air-inlets LEV (type 2). That LEV
has been simulated using ANSYS FLUENT software for their air flow performances. LEV material and the cost of production were
considered parameter for fabricating and effectiveness of LEV system. Results show that air velocity in LEV type 1 was gradually
uniform throughout its ducting network but it increased at the 90º bend section with a maximum air velocity of 31.054 m/s. In the LEV
type 2, the air flow simulations depicted uniformity velocity values of 8.12 m/s, 8.58 m/s and 7.69 m/s at every inlet respectively. The
finding suggests that LEV type 2 was more efficient compared to LEV type 1 due to increasing streamline air velocity.
The purpose of this study is to assess the preferred temperature
(Tpref) of human participants exposed to air-conditioned temperature variations in
climate chamber experiments. Findings were later compared with an earlier Tpref
experiment by de Dear et. al. (1991). Twenty nine healthy college-age participants
underwent thirty minutes of preconditioned session before casting their thermal
preference and thermal sensation votes every 10 minutes for the remaining 150
minutes of the experiment. These affective votes were correlated against average of
ambient air temperature and participant's body temperature taken 30 minutes
before the experiment ends. The mean Tpref was 25.1°C (± 1.2), mean skin
temperature of 33.7°C (± 0.6) and mean body temperature of 36.3°C (±0.3). It can
be concluded that Tpref gathered in the preferred temperature experiment shows
significant difference in participants’ temperature preference which was 0.6 °C
cooler than earlier experiment suggesting change in how indoor ambient
temperature is preferred. In addition, mean skin temperature and gender did not
influence participants’ Tpref.
Recent statistics from the Social Security Organization (SOCSO) of Malaysia shows Commuting Accident (CA)
increased consistently by 1500 cases per year from 2008 to 2012. This has resulted in the rising of fatality rate,
extensive claims of compensation payment and not to mention loss of valuable talents. However, little is known
about the contributing factors to the occurrences of CA in Malaysia because CA is never considered to be work
related before. This study aims to explore work related factors with occurrence of CA using 5-year statistical data
from SOCSO, Malaysia. Moreover, we also reviewed studies published between 1990s and 2014 to support the
statistical findings. Motorbike is found as the most common vehicle used which involved in CA. Individual factors
concerning workers behaviour is a main risk factor of CA. Family related factors (parenting responsibility), work
burden, workplace support as well as environmental factors such as bad weather and bad road conditions are also
significant contributions of CA. It is very important to develop behavioural intervention strategies and provide proper
training. Hence, more attention should be directed to young individual workers in balancing them with capabilities and
organization performance demand. This may lead to the elimination of the other causes of CA. In conclusion, solutions
to this problem involve not only a particular party to ensure the wellbeing of workers in Malaysia, but all authorities
should play roles in enhancing safety and health matter of workers especially on the occurrence of accident.
An awareness of possible risk factor in pesticides, by changing attitude towards the correct technique during spraying and
changing behavior can increase safety of workers safety as well as performance. However, there is a limited study and not highlighted
deeply in knowledge, attitude and practices of workers in palm oil plantation issue. Therefore , the objective of this paper is to identify
the relationship between knowledge, attitude and practices of pesticides among the plantation workers. The quantitative method were
used in this paper whereby 132 respondents as pesticide sprayer which represent 90% of the population of palm oil workers in Johor.
The result of spearman correlation indicates that there is significant relationship between knowledge and practices. It shows the
common pattern of high knowledge resulting high practices of the workers during spraying the pesticides at plantation. There is no
relationship between knowledge and attitude and between attitude and practice of the workers at the workplace. This paper shows that
knowledge need to be strengthen in agricultural communities of Johor in order to reduce health problem and sosial issue statistic and
prevent for any future accident. Human exposure to pesticides is an important health and sosial issue as it usually results in serious
health problems such as stroke, epilepsy, respiratory disorders and cancer. Death has been known to occur in some places as a result
of exposures to pesticides. Therefore, more impact knowledge-focused programs need to be arranged and implemented to inculcate
the better awareness of pesticides among palm oil workers, as without knowledge, people may become less careful and therefore are
exposed to pesticide poisoning and other long term exposure illness in the future.
The low back is usually associated with the lumbar spine which supports the entire weight of the upper body and significantly, is vital to the body mobility. Injury to the surrounding soft tissues can cause mild to debilitating symptoms due to muscle strain and ligament sprain. The causes of injury to the lower back are probably due to sudden twisting movement, poor posture position at work and manual handling of heavy objects or with twisting or bending movements while lifting. An Ergonomic Risk Assessment was carried out on a dental laboratory worker who complained of unresolved low back ache after a year on treatment and follow up at the outpatient department of a health clinic. From the various investigative methods used, it was found that the worker in question was placed in a situation that will over time encourage her to develop musculoskeletal disease. Our recommendations for change include immediate awareness and training in ergonomic principles of work and to report all cases so that appropriate action can be taken, reassess the workstation and environment of work, job enrichment, and creating a conducive environment for work. Once the changes have been implemented, a review will be necessary in three months time.
To investigate the safety climate and knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) on occupational safety and health (OSH)in the manufacturing industry, also to determine the association between safety climate factors and KAP of safety among manufacturing worker. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 59 respondents from two manufacturing plants located in Gebeng, Kuantan, Pahang. Most of the respondents were Malay (91.5%) and male (96.6%). Participants were administered a set of questionnaires (Cronbach alpha=0.674) that measured the safety climate as perceived by the workers towards their supervisor and KAP of the workers regarding safety-related matters at the workplace. Self-administered questionnaires consisted of 5 points Likert scale used to measure each of the items of safety climate and KAP. The scales for safety climate and KAP were probed using 16 items and 17 items in the questionnaires, respectively. The results were analysed using a non-parametric test, which is Spearman’s rho correlations and descriptive statistics. Bivariate analysis was performed. There was a moderate positive correlation between safety climate and KAP domains (Spearman’s rho: 0.581, p
The trends of safety incident process have been put in the statistical research and development in order to prevent
and mitigate the phenomenon. One of the incidents is known as dust explosion. It represents a constant hazard to
industries which includes any manufacturing using and handling combustible dust materials. Lack of sharing and
know-how on best practices in managing the workplace must be avoided throughout the industries. The severity and
the consequences of not taking the safety precautions at workplace have not been foreseen by the process team. This
present paper discusses the best practices in managing the hazards from the catastrophes to happen again. In addition,
the mitigation response has also been explored thoroughly through database of best practices.