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The occupational indoor air quality during construction plays a role in determining workers' health as construction activities frequently generate airborne pollutants. This paper presents a methodology to predict the concentration of air pollutants during construction activities using building information modeling (BIM) and schedule the activities to limit the pollutant concentration within acceptable limits. This method allows the stakeholders to determine and predict the indoor air quality at the construction site before actual construction work. The proposed method was applied to predict the concentration of [PM.sub.10] during dry wall sanding in a new residence as a case study. Using BIM technology [PM.sub.10] concentration was predicted during drywall sanding, which ranged from 12.8 to 29.5 mg/[m.sup.3]. Also the hourly [PM.sub.10] concentration level and the production rate of the drywall activity was adjusted to reduce the concentration level from 20 mg/[m.sup.3] to the applicable standard of 10 mg/[m.sup.3]. The unique contribution of this research compared to previous research on indoor air quality and BIM is the development of a new method that integrates occupational indoor air quality with building information modeling for the assessment of the occupational environment for construction workers. More specifically, this paper uses BIM to assess the occupational indoor air quality and schedule construction activities to limit the exposure of workers to prescribed guidelines. Key words: building information modeling, BIM, occupational indoor air quality, drywall sanding, construction schedule. Durant la construction, la qualite de l'air a l'interieur de batiments joue un role determinant dans la sante des travailleurs puisque les activites de construction generent souvent des polluants aeroportes. Cet article presente une methode de predire la concentration en polluants aeroportes durant les activites de construction en utilisant la modelisation de gestion des batiments (BIM) et le calendrier des activites; le but est de garder la concentration de polluants sous les limites. La methode permet aux intervenants de determiner et de predire la qualite de l'air a l'interieur des batiments aux sites de construction avant que le debut du travail reel. La methode proposee a ete utilisee dans une etude de cas pour predire la concentration de PM10 durant le sablage des murs de panneaux de gypse dans une nouvelle residence. La concentration de PM10, en utilisant la technologie BIM, a ete predite entre 12,8 et 29,5 mg/[m.sup.3] durant le sablage des murs de panneaux de gypse. De plus, la concentration a l'heure de PM10 et le taux de production de l'activite de sablage ont ete ajustes afin de reduire la concentration de 20 mg/[m.sup.3] a la norme applicable de 10 mg/[m.sup.3]. La contribution unique de cette recherche, comparee a une recherche anterieure sur la qualite de l'air interieur et la BIM, est le developpement d'une nouvelle methode qui integre la qualite de l'air interieur de batiments industriels et la BIM dans le but d'evaluer l'environnement de travail des ouvriers. Plus specifiquement, cet article utilise la BIM pour evaluer la qualite de l'air a interieur de batiments industriels et pour ordonnancer les activites de construction afin de limiter l'exposition des ouvriers aux normes etablies dans les lignes directrices. [Traduit par la Redaction] Mots-cles: modelisation de gestion des batiments, BIM, qualite de l'air interieur de batiments, sablage de murs en panneaux de gypse, calendrier de construction., Introduction Research on occupational health and safety has become an important field for the construction industry. In Canada approximately $214 million in capital was spent on the construction sector in [...]

Exposure to lead has been shown to be harmful to adults; it is a teratogen, it can damage the peripheral nervous system, and it adversely affects the reproductive system. Professional lead-based paint remediation workers are at risk of exposure to lead dust. The authors' study was conducted to determine if these remediation workers transfer lead from their work site to their vehicles and then potentially expose their families. It was hypothesized that remediation workers transported the lead from the remediation work site to the floorboards of their vehicles due to not following required protective equipment use. The laboratory's level of quantitation for lead on the wipe samples, 10 µg/[ft.sup.2], was used to indicate lead contamination. This level was exceeded in 50% of the floorboards sampled. These results confirm that many vehicle floorboards used by remediation workers are contaminated with lead dust, potentially resulting in transfer of lead dust. The ultimate detrimental outcome could be the transfer of lead particles to other family members, causing the poisoning of a child or other at-risk person., Introduction Our study investigated whether professional lead-based paint remediation workers transfer lead dust from the work site to either company or personal vehicles and potentially to their homes. Protocols for [...]

Sleep deprivation contributes to fatigue, which can have a profound effect on an individual's wellbeing, work performance, and safety. To investigate this phenomenon, a study was conducted on a sample of construction workers on a large construction project in Vancouver, Canada. This paper reports on the results from the workers wearing an actigraph 24 h/day for a full week to precisely measure their sleep and rest. The results enabled sleep efficiency and mental effectiveness levels to be determined by correlating them to blood alcohol concentration levels. This allowed determination of increased risk due to inadequate sleep. It was found that workers fell well under recommended sleep requirement guidelines of 8-h sleep per night, which resulted in an increase in risk of accident of 9%. Although further work is needed to better understand the coping mechanisms of fatigue and how the resulting fatigue factor could be measured and managed, this study indicates that workers in the construction industry suffer decrements in performance and are at higher risk of accident at home and work solely due to inadequate sleep. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)CO.1943-7862.0000211 CE Database subject headings: Human factors; Construction; Accidents; Productivity; Employees. Author keywords: Sleep deprivation; Fatigue; Construction; Accidents; Productivity; Impairment.

Construction workers (CWs) are the key and indispensable contributors to every construction project. Their psychological feelings greatly influence their behaviors and safety performance. To improve CWs' safety performance in dangerous working environment, the current research aims to identify the various stressors affecting two types of stress of CWs (i.e., job stress and emotional stress) and to explore the impacts of the two types of stress on CW injury incidents in Hong Kong. Eleven stressors were identified through factor analysis: work overload, role ambiguity, lack of autonomy, unfair reward and treatment, appropriate safety equipment, optimism, interrole conflict, poor workgroup relationship, lack of feedback, poor physical environment, and unsafe environment. The results of correlation and regression analyses reveal that (1) among the two types of stress identified, injury., incident of CWs was found to be affected by emotional stress only, (2) emotional stress is predicted by work overload, interrole conflict, poor physical environment, unfair reward and treatment, and appropriate safety equipments, and (3) poor workgroup relationship, work overload, and interrole conflict predict job stress of CWs. Based on the result, various recommendations are suggested to employers on how to minimize CW injury incidents. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)CO.1943-7862.0000216 CE Database subject headings: Construction industry; Injuries; Human factors; Accidents; Hong Kong; Occupational safety; Occupational health. Author keywords: Construction workers; Emotional stress; Injury incidents; Job stress; Stressors.

The article discusses the efficacy and safety of acupuncture as a form of treatment for acute chronic low back pain. The case of a 45-year-old construction worker with a 7-year history of lower back pain is highlighted to better understand the benefits offered by acupuncture when used along with other forms of treatment.

Using samples of blue collar construction workers from the 1996 and 2001 SIPP, a shared frailty survival model shows that controlling for wages, occupational and demographic factors, both portable union and nonportable nonunion employer-provided health insurance increase the probability of worker retention within the construction industry. Portable union health insurance increases the probability of worker-industry retention by 30 to 41% compared to 13 to 18% for nonunion employer-provided insurance. Our research suggests that by encouraging industry retention, health insurance preserves and encourages the accumulation of human capital in a turbulent industry with high firm-and-industry-labor turnover and also may reduce worker disabilities by immediately treating medical problems. Furthermore, in the union sector of construction where health insurance is portable across signatory contractors, the problem of job-lock inefficiencies is reduced. Keywords Health insurance * Job-lock * Construction industry DOI 10.1007/s12122-010-9083-4

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2008.09.055 Byline: Akihito Shimazu (a), Jan de Jonge (b) Abstract: Siegrist's [1996. Adverse health effects of high-effort/low-reward conditions. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 1, 27-41.] Effort-Reward Imbalance (ERI) Model assumes that ERI at one point in time influences health at a later point in time. Empirical cross-sectional and longitudinal findings have supported the influence of ERI on adverse health. However, the ERI model does not explicitly take into account that the relation between ERI and adverse health may be also explained by reversed causal relations, or even reciprocal (bi-directional) relations in which ERI and health mutually influence each other. The present 3-wave panel study among 211 Japanese male blue-collar workers in one construction machinery company examined reciprocal relations between ERI and adverse health (i.e., psychological distress and physical complaints) with a 1-year time-lag per wave. Hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling (Amos 7.0J). Results showed cross-lagged and causally dominant effects of ERI on both psychological distress and physical complaints after 1 year for both Time 1-Time 2 and Time 2-Time 3. In addition, cross-lagged effects of psychological distress on ERI were found after 1 year for both Time 1-Time 2 and Time 2-Time 3. These findings suggest that (perceived) ERI and employee health influence each other reciprocally rather than uni-directionally, and underline the importance of studying reversed causal effects in the relation between ERI and employee health. Author Affiliation: (a) The University of Tokyo Graduate School of Medicine, Department of Mental Health, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan (b) Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

A field study was conducted to highlight the occupational risk factors related to building construction activities in India among female workers. These workers were engaged in eight different types of activities and related work parameters were studied in detail. From field environmental parameters, the calculated WBGT was obtained as 30.26 [+ or -] 1.52 [degrees]C, indicated that these workers worked under a positive heat load condition. Whole day work study was conducted oil 11 adult female workers performing concreting operation. They were having age of 28-32 years with 5-7 years of work experience. These workers were mainly performing two types of operations in the field: (A) asymmetric lifting during concreting a boundary wall formwork of a lift unit and (B) carrying the concrete mixture. During asymmetric lifting, the average field working heart rate (HR) was calculated as 124.1 [+ or -] 12.5 beats [min.sup.-1], equivalent to 45.03 [+ or -] 6.93% of [VO.sub.2] max level. These working heart rates (HRs) were significantly (p [less than or equal to] 0.005) correlated with pause time (P.T.) and lifting frequency, but not with lifting time. A method was proposed to determine the average steady P.T. from fluctuating working HR and the lifting frequency was calculated as 6.1 lifts [min.sup.-1]. This type of load handling task showed lower work efficiency and higher relative HR (%RHR). The required resting time was calculated as 61.47%, whereas the actual rest time (R.T.) in the field was 23.56 [+ or -] 10.28%. Using Neibel and Frivalds equation, the rest allowance (RA) due to muscular fatigue and environmental load were calculated as 50.46% and 45.02 min/h, respectively. These results showed that the workers were not getting sufficient rest in the field. With work parameter modification, in optimum condition, the RWL value could be achieved as 7.19 kg, which was much lesser than the actual lifted load of 12.02 kg. Therefore, modification of workplace and work methods was suggested to compensate the health hazard conditions. Keywords: Work rest schedule; Workload assessment; Relative heart rate; Indian building construction workers