New Findings in Risk Management Described from University of Waikato (Investigating Real-time Monitoring of Fatigue Indicators of New Zealand Forestry Workers)

Insurance Daily News

2019 MAY 31 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- Current study results on Risk Management have been published. According to news reporting originating from Hamilton, New Zealand, by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, “The New Zealand forestry industry has one of the highest fatality and injury rates of any industrial sector in the country. Worker fatigue has been identified as one of the main contributing factors.”

Our news editors obtained a quote from the research from the University of Waikato, “Currently no independent and objective large data source is available that might support an analysis of this, or provide the basis for ongoing monitoring to further investigate. In order to successfully manage fatigue in the forestry workplace, we must identify suitable ways of detecting it. Industry partners are increasingly looking at monitoring solutions (particularly lightweight, wearable technology) that aim to measure worker activities and physiological metrics in order to determine if they are fatigued. In this article we present the results of studies which investigate whether or not such technology can capture meaningful data in a reliable way that is both practical and usable within the forestry domain. Two series of studies were undertaken with in-situ forestry workers using reaction and decision-making times as a measure of potential impairment, while considering activity levels (via step count and heart rate) and job-roles. We present the results of these studies and further provide a comparison of results across different ambient temperatures (winter vs. summer periods).”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “The results of our studies suggest that it may not be possible to identify correlations between workloads (based on both physical and cognitive stresses) and fatigue measures using in-situ measurements as results are highly personalised to individual workers and can be misleading if the wider context is not also taken into consideration.”

For more information on this research see: Investigating Real-time Monitoring of Fatigue Indicators of New Zealand Forestry Workers. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 2019;126():122-141. Accident Analysis & Prevention can be contacted at: Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd, The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford OX5 1GB, England. (Elsevier - www.elsevier.com; Accident Analysis & Prevention - http://www.journals.elsevier.com/accident-analysis-and-prevention/)

The news editors report that additional information may be obtained by contacting J. Bowen, University of Waikato, Dept. of Computer Sciences, Hamilton, New Zealand. Additional authors for this research include A. Hinze and C. Griffiths.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2017.12.010. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.