Estill C F, MacDonald L A, Wenzl T B, Petersen M R
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Cincinnati, Ohio 45226, USA.
Ergonomics. 2000 Sep;43(9):1430-45. doi: 10.1080/001401300421842.
Ergonomists need easy-to-use, quantitative job evaluation methods to assess risk factors for upper extremity work-related musculoskeletal disorders in field-based epidemiology studies. One device that may provide an objective measure of exposure to arm acceleration is a wrist-worn accelerometer or activity monitor. A field trial was conducted to evaluate the performance of a single-axis accelerometer using an industrial population (n=158) known to have diverse upper limb motion characteristics. The second phase of the field trial involved an examination of the relationship between more traditional observation-based ergonomic exposure measures and the monitor output among a group of assembly-line production employees (n=48) performing work tasks with highly stereotypic upper limb motion patterns. As expected, the linear acceleration data obtained from the activity monitor showed statistically significant differences between three occupational groups known observationally to have different upper limb motion requirements. Among the assembly-line production employees who performed different short-cycle assembly work tasks, statistically significant differences were also observed. Several observation-based ergonomic exposure measures were found to explain differences in the acceleration measure among the production employees who performed different jobs: hand and arm motion speed, use of the hand as a hammer, and, negatively, resisting forearm rotation from the torque of a power tool. The activity monitors were found to be easy to use and non-intrusive, and to be able to distinguish arm acceleration among groups with diverse upper limb motion characteristics as well as between different assembly job tasks where arm monitors were performed repeatedly at a fixed rate.
在基于现场的流行病学研究中，人体工程学专家需要易于使用的定量工作评估方法，以评估上肢工作相关肌肉骨骼疾病的风险因素。一种可以客观测量手臂加速度暴露情况的设备是腕部佩戴的加速度计或活动监测器。进行了一项现场试验，以评估单轴加速度计在已知具有不同上肢运动特征的工业人群（n = 158）中的性能。现场试验的第二阶段涉及对一组从事具有高度刻板上肢运动模式工作任务的装配线生产员工（n = 48），研究更传统的基于观察的人体工程学暴露测量与监测器输出之间的关系。正如预期的那样，从活动监测器获得的线性加速度数据显示，在三个通过观察已知具有不同上肢运动要求的职业组之间存在统计学上的显著差异。在从事不同短周期装配工作任务的装配线生产员工中，也观察到了统计学上的显著差异。发现几种基于观察的人体工程学暴露测量方法可以解释从事不同工作的生产员工之间加速度测量的差异：手和手臂的运动速度、将手用作锤子的情况，以及消极方面，抵抗电动工具扭矩引起的前臂旋转。活动监测器被发现易于使用且不具侵入性，并且能够区分具有不同上肢运动特征的组之间以及在以固定速率重复执行手臂监测的不同装配工作任务之间的手臂加速度。
