Investigation on occupational hand-arm vibration disease of 8 workers engaged in polishing processing

Objective In order to analyze the occurrence causes of occupational hand-arm vibration disease in an automobile wheel manufacturer and provide the evidence for control of such hazards in the workplace.

Methods The basic information of this enterprise, and the data of the production technique, working schedule, the operating method and the polish tools, the occupational health work were collected. The work-sites were checked and hand-transmitted variation intensity was measured.

Results The workers in the shop of wheel hub mainly used hand-held grinding tools to polish work-piece in the forcing position, and the operation procedures were not standardized. Each day they worked for 11 hours. Recently three years, the enterprise didn't measure hand-held vibration intensity, didn't provide the workers with occupational health examination against hand-transmitted vibration. The noise level was higher than national exposure limits, while both the hand-transmitted vibration intensity and dust concentration were lower than national exposure limits in this workshop. Spearman level correlation analysis showed clearly that there was a correlation between the daily vibration exposure time and the severity of occupational hand-arm vibration disease of these workers (r_s=0.932, P < 0.01).

Conclusion In order to prevent the occurrence of occupational arm vibration diseases, enterprises should recognize the hazards of hand transmitted vibration as early as possible, change the forced position and gripping power of workers through technical transformation, strictly limit the over-time work, strengthen individual protection, and improve work on measurement of occupational hazards at workplaces and occupational health examination of workers.