Occupational Fitness, Standards, and Tests - Cautionary Tales from the Bush

摘要

This paper reviews some concepts of stress and strain in physical work, how they are applied to occupational ergonomics, and how they may be applied to occupational fitness. Workers' physiological and subjective responses to physically demanding work are determined by the demands of the work and the workers' capacities to perform the work. The conventional role of occupational ergonomics is to design work, or control work demands, so that they can be performed by the majority of workers with acceptable levels of strain and productivity. In some occupational tasks such as firefighting it is not possible to control work demands. In these circumstances fitness standards may be recommended in an attempt to reduce the risk of overstress. Recent research on bushfire fighters in Australia has shown that firefighters appear to pace themselves at similar levels of strain, regardless of a wide range of individual fitness. Physical fitness determined work performance rather than work strain. Furthermore, because the firefighters' work strains were considerably greater than common recommendations, the research suggests that fitness standards may not ensure that firefighters work within conventionally acceptable limits of strain.