Exposure-response relations for the neurological disorders associated with occupations involving vibrating power tools and machines

Status:

ongoing

Aims:

It is the goal of this research to establish exposure-response relations for the neurological symptoms associated with the operation of vibrating hand-held power tools and machines, and thereby enable the risks in the many occupations in which they are used to be assessed.

Research hypotheses:

H1: Population-based exposure-response relations for selected neurosensory symptoms resulting from vibration absorbed within the hand can be constructed from a pooled analysis of published epidemiologic studies of workers operating vibrating power tools or machines.

H2: The procedure for specifying the exposure to vibration and mechanical shock contained in ISO 5349-1:2001 can be improved to better reflect the health effects experienced by users of vibrating power tools and machines.

H3: Achievement of hypothesis 2 will permit the development of improved exposure-response relations for the neurosensory symptoms resulting from vibration absorbed within the hand.

H4: Exposure-response relations for the neurological symptoms resulting from vibration transmitted to the wrist can be constructed provided sufficient data exist to perform a pooled analysis and ergonomic co-factors associated with manual work can be assessed and not shown to be solely associated with the symptoms.

Activities/Methods:

Pooled and meta-analyses are carried out. For this purpose, published studies are selected on the basis of recognized criteria and additional rules. Data on the prevalence of neurosensory and neurological disorders caused by exposure to vibrations from hand-held tools and machines will be collected from these studies. These are interpolated to a selected prevalence in order to create exposure-response models by means of regression analyses, where possible, and thus establish a mathematical relationship between the vibration exposure and the diseases. Based on data from long-term studies, one or more prevalence growth functions are created to ensure the most precise interpolation possible. Differences in the exposure-response relations when using one versus several tools or machines, as well as the use of different frequency weightings in the exposure assessment will be analyzed.

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