Towards the development of physiological and ergonomic methodology in solving the problem of assessing individual occupational risk in physical labor
Authors: Ustyantsev Sergey L. , Kishka Oksana S. , Protasova Oksana S. , Danilova Mehriban A. , Nasybullina Galiya M. , Lipanova Lyudmila L. , Kutlaeva Yulia Yu. , Popova Olga S. , Babikova Anastasia S. , Ankudinova Anna V. , Reshetova Svetlana V. , Malkova Tatyana G. 
Published: August 2024

In the diagnosis of occupational diseases, the primary, most saturated with the results of the body's natural interaction with the production environment, mobile communication, is of high importance. However, official guidelines are not intended to identify it. Without this, the development of problems of individual occupational risk, occupational health, presenteeism and the development of productive forces cannot but be palliative, which makes it difficult to achieve the goal of occupational health — to provide everyone with healthy labor.
The study aims to substantiate an informative methodological approach for assessing individual occupational risk in physical labor.
The authors studied the work of 10 movers (men aged 30-35 years) who were engaged in loading and unloading furniture delivered to customers. The workers were divided into two groups of equal numbers, differing in the level of preliminary physical training. The first group consisted of five people who had previously regularly engaged in weightlifting, and the second consisted of people who had not previously engaged in such activities.
The experimental condition of the study consisted in the paired movement of a heavy load (50–60 kg or more) by two workers in one of these groups. The scientists used timekeeping, ergonomic, physiological and physiological-ergonomic methods to study the severity of labor. They also identified: the heart rate, followed by its transfer to the power of work, the mass of skeletal muscles involved in the work according to the physiological method with the determination of the value of the minute volume of respiration. The mass of skeletal muscles involved in the work was estimated by experts in the range from 5 to 90% in increments of 5% for each class of working conditions. The classes of harmful and dangerous working conditions were divided into two points (class 3.1 corresponded to points 3 and 4, class 3.2 — points 4 and 5, etc.).
The authors found that in comparable conditions, the severity of the work of movers in both groups can be assessed by the ergonomic method of class 3.2., but by means of physiological and physiological-ergonomic methods, the experts found that the severity of their work is significantly (p<0.001) different. For the movers of the first group, the average score is 3.2 points (6 points) with fluctuations per shift in the range 3.2 (5) — 3.3 (7), and for the movers of the second group — 3.3 points (8 points) in the range 3,3 (8) — 3,4 (9).
The researchers justified the need for the transition of occupational health from an extensive to a new intensive paradigm in the study of working conditions. In it, the actual and normative hygienic parameters of the load on the body emanating from the material production factor are combined and interact with the physiological parameters of the employee in a single indicator called the effective exposure of the material factor during the work shift, which mobile results in the current impact of heterogeneous characteristics of working conditions on health.
Limitations. The small number of subjects — 10 people, the inability to more fully reflect the developed physiological and ergonomic methodology of research, rationing and assessment of the severity of work.
Ethics. In preparing the article, the authors were guided by the ethical principles of medical research set out in the Helsinki Declaration of the World Medical Association of the latest revision. This study did not require the conclusion of the Ethics Committee.