College of Earth and Environmental Sciences, New campus, University of the Punjab, Lahore 54590, Pakistan.
Department of Public Health, College of Life Sciences, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84604, USA.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020 Apr 9;17(7):2566. doi: 10.3390/ijerph17072566.
In subcontinental underground mines, coal mining is carried out manually and requires many laborers to practice traditional means of coal excavation. Each task of this occupation disturbs workers' musculoskeletal order. In order to propose and practice possible ergonomic interventions, it is necessary to know what tasks (drilling and blasting, coal cutting, dumping, transporting, timbering and supporting, loading and unloading) cause disorder in either upper limbs, lower limbs, or both. To this end, R-programming, version R 3.1.2 and SPSS, software 20, were used to calculate data obtained by studying 260 workers (working at different tasks of coal mining) from 20 mines of four districts of Punjab, Pakistan. In addition, a Standard Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire (SNMQ) and Rapid Upper Limb Assessment (RULA) sheet were used to collect data and to analyze postures respectively. In multi regression models, significance of the five tasks for upper and lower limb disorder is 0.00, which means that task based prevalence of upper and lower limb disorders are common in underground coal mines. The results of the multiple bar chart showed that 96 coal cutters got upper limb disorders and 82 got lower limb disorders. The task of timbering and supporting was shown to be dangerous for the lower limbs and relatively less dangerous for the upper limbs, with 25 workers reporting pain in their lower limbs, and 19 workers reporting pain in their upper limbs. Documented on the RULA sheet, all tasks got the maximum possible score (7), meaning that each of these tasks pose a threat to the posture of 100% of workers. The majority of participants (182) fell in the age group of 26 to 35 years. Of those workers, 131 reported pain in the lower limbs and slight discomfort (128) in the upper limbs. The significance value of age was 0.00 for upper limb disorder and was 0.012 for lower limb disorder. Frequency graphs show age in direct proportion to severity of pain while in inverse proportion with number of repetitions performed per min. All findings infer that each task of underground coal mining inflicts different levels of disorder in a workers' musculoskeletal structure of the upper and lower limbs. It highlighted the need for urgent intervention in postural aspects of each task.
在次大陆的地下矿山中，煤炭开采是手工进行的，需要许多劳动者采用传统的采煤方法。该职业的每一项任务都会扰乱劳动者的肌肉骨骼秩序。为了提出并实施可行的人体工程学干预措施，有必要了解哪些任务（钻孔爆破、采煤、倾倒、运输、支护和支撑、装卸）会对上肢、下肢或两者同时造成紊乱。 为此，使用了 R 编程语言，版本 R 3.1.2 和 SPSS 软件 20，来计算从巴基斯坦旁遮普省四个地区的 20 个矿山的 260 名工人（从事不同的采煤任务）所获得的数据。此外，还使用了标准北欧肌肉骨骼问卷（SNMQ）和快速上肢评估（RULA）表来分别收集数据和分析姿势。 在多元回归模型中，五个任务对上肢和下肢紊乱的显著性为 0.00，这意味着基于任务的上下肢紊乱在地下煤矿中很常见。多条形图的结果表明，96 名采煤机工人出现了上肢紊乱，82 名工人出现了下肢紊乱。支护和支撑任务对下肢危险较大，对上肢相对危险较小，25 名工人报告下肢疼痛，19 名工人报告上肢疼痛。在 RULA 表上记录的是，所有任务都获得了可能的最高分数（7），这意味着这些任务中的每一项都对 100%工人的姿势构成威胁。大多数参与者（182 人）的年龄在 26 至 35 岁之间。在这些工人中，131 人报告说下肢疼痛，128 人上肢稍有不适。上肢紊乱的年龄显著性值为 0.00，下肢紊乱的显著性值为 0.012。频率图显示，年龄与疼痛严重程度成正比，与每分钟重复次数成反比。 所有发现都表明，地下煤矿的每一项任务都会对工人的上下肢肌肉骨骼结构造成不同程度的紊乱。这突出表明需要立即干预每个任务的姿势方面。
