Health and Occupational Efficiency Characteristics of Fellers Engaged in Polish Forestry

摘要

Forestry is identified in Poland, as in many other countries, as an industry with heavy work, high risk of diseases, injuries and accidents. In many situations the workload exceeds ergonomically accepted limits of load and fatigue. Felling, wedging, delimbing, it means all activities done by chainsaw operators, are particularly strenuous and dangerous. This state is a rule in many countries, beyond those where all logging operations are mechanized. The mechanization of logging in Poland is very expensive. It must be taken into consideration that almost all work tasks in logging (cutting, debranching, etc.) will be done traditionally, utilizing chainsaws. This short report is one of effects of research project planned on a wider scale. The work started in 1993 and is in process till now. The purpose was to broaden knowledge about fellers state of the art. One of the purposes was also to define what are the characteristics of fellers, that can be used to chose and develop competent, healthy, safety worker that can meet market demands in near future. More than 90 chainsaw operators have been examined. In this study the following occupational efficiency characteristics of workers, important from ergonomic point of view, were recorded: height, weight, both hands power end endurance, maximum oxygen uptake, tremometrie, audiometrie (hearing loss due to chainsaw). During these investigations workers were also asked to answer more than 200 questions. Two third of them was connected with personal data, characteristics and information. One third of the questions were connected with hearing problems and audiologic history. It is indicated that workforce of today is not enough: educated, healthy, motivated, equipped etc. Author assumed that there is a great need for dissemination knowledge between countries with a large experience in range of privatization of forestry activities, and countries entering this path.