Despite many decades of investigations of individuals exposed to hand-arm vibration (HAV), our knowledge of the mechanisms leading to impairments, disabilities, and possibly injuries, is still very incomplete. The advancement of our understanding of hand-transmitted vibration has been the objective of the Vibration Injury Network (VINET). where research projects from nine individual partners from eight different countries have been coordinated under the auspices and the financial support of the EU. The network has recently finalized its activities after a three-year collaborative action. This paper provides a broad overview of some of the results of the network which shed new light on issues such as the appropriateness of the existing frequency weighting curve to predict different physiological responses, the reliability of existing dose-response relationship, the role of alternative descriptors of exposure. A short discussion of the main results is included and some suggestions for future studies are presented.
展开▼
