The Problems Experienced by Outdoor Workers When Integrating Personal Protective Devices with Cold Protection

摘要

People working in northern regions during the winter are exposed to both occupational hazards and harsh climatic conditions. The workers operating in cold environments have to wear personal protective devices(PPDs) against work hazards and the cold. An important function of cold protective clothing is the protection of extremities(i. e. head, hands, feet). However, despite the abundance of available cold protective clothing, workers still experience cold sensation and discomfort-in particular, from the extremities-in cold indoor/outdoor environments. The other problems are: thermal discomfort and pain sensation, impaired manual performance caused by cold/or gloved hands, impaired mobility and operational capacity due to environmental conditions and/or the weight and bulk of clothing. The modern design philosophy for protective clothing is concentrated on optimising protection and simultaneously making the wearer of the PPDs more comfortable and more productive. An interview study was carried out in the Northern part of Sweden during the cold season and it aimed to identify the problems associated with the simultaneous use of extremity protection against occupational hazards(i. e. safety gloves, safety shoes and safety helmets) and cold protection. The interviews were conducted among 30 outdoor construction and forestry workers, who spend more than four hours a day working outdoors during the winter. According to the interviews, the majority of the respondents had some kind of the problem to integrate effectively the protection against the hazard and the cold. The most commonly mentioned problems were cold feet due to steel toecaps and numb hands from precision work carried out with bare hands.