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This group undertakes research to create environments that are safer and healthier for workers in mines and in the surrounding communities.
For at least the next twenty years, mining in South Africa will remain labour intensive, with large numbers of workers underground. The Optimal Miner project aims to create an environment that supports workers to deliver useful work without affecting their health. A worker should retire at sixty healthy and able to enjoy the fruits of her labours.
The project is concerned with health at a holistic level. Apart from occupational diseases like silicosis, it will look at wellness issues such as nutrition, rest, social conditions and home life. Even when looking at diseases, the approach is not to focus on simple causes and effects, but on the complex systems that people work within.
Impact: Occupational diseases are thought to claim as many as a third of the people who have worked on gold mines. Quite apart from compensation issues, the industry and country have a moral duty to stop shortening the lives of workers and ruining their pensions through diseases like silicosis and noise induced hearing loss. The holistic approach of the optimal miner project can provide the tools to accomplish this.
The risk of fatigue is inherent in any work-time arrangement involving shift work, long hours of work, irregular hours, extended work hours and work that is physically or mentally demanding, repetitive or requires high vigilance. Fatigue can lead to accidents because it affects a number of key mental and physical abilities and can, for example, result in impaired concentration, poor judgement, reduced hand-eye coordination and slower reaction times. Industrial workers under thermal stress for extended periods become fatigued: physical fatigue has been identified as a causal factor in heat exhaustion and attributed to several physiological disturbances such as excessive cardiovascular strain and hyperthermia.
A number of accidents, which could be attributed to the loss of control due to the sleepiness of drivers, have been reported at mines where haul trucks are used. In view of the seriousness of these accidents research was initiated to identifying the factors that affect driver alertness during mining operations. The objective of the project is to develop a fatigue management programme that would address task- as well as worker-related factors associated with worker fatigue. The final output will be a best practice handbook and a practical guideline on fatigue management.
Impact: The implementation of fatigue management procedures in industrial settings has the potential to eliminate operator fatigue or its causes, reduce the likelihood of fatigue occurring in the workplace, and counteract the effects of fatigue when it occurs.
In order to ameliorate risks to workers performing physical work in hot environments, it is important to consider not only the heat stress imposed by the environmental, but also the physiological strain that they are exposed to. Core body temperature and heart rate are appropriate physiological parameters to estimate physiological strain: core body temperature indicates the increase in body heat storage during exercise or physical work resulting from an accumulation of heat produced by skeletal muscle contraction, while heart rate reflects demands placed on the circulatory system in response to metabolic and environmental conditions. A Physiological Strain Index, based on core body temperature and heart rate, is considered as representative of total physiological strain and has the ability to rate and compare the strain imposed by various combinations of environmental and work rate conditions.
The objective of the project is to investigate the physiological strain experienced by mine workers during their routine underground work. The physiological responses obtained are correlated physical characteristics of the worker as well as with work task information considering, among others, type of activity (including ergonomic factors), work intensity, work-rest cycles and environmental conditions.
Impact: As a result of socio-economic and gender-sensitive employment policies, the demographics of the mining workforce are rapidly changing. These changes indicate a broad scope for applying the Physiological Strain Index across the mining industry. For example, information obtained during the project will provide a sound scientific base that can be used in the formulation of job placement policies (including physical selection criteria). This would assist the mining in accommodating its diverse workforce.
The concept of women working in the mining industry is relatively new in South Africa and is supported by the Mining Charter of 2004 which requires that 10% of the workforce in the mining industry will be women by the year 2009.
With the changes in the demographics of the ‘traditional’ South African workforce, especially in the mining industry, there is a need to establish the role of gender in occupational health risks. This information could in turn be used to assess the relevance of current occupational exposure limits, selection criteria based on workers abilities and limitations, the design of workstations and equipment, and occupational health management systems.
The project will address enablers and barriers to long term employment of female miners together with factors such as occupational health and safety and organisational and cultural issues. Research needs will also be identified which could potentially result in guidelines for employers and employees concerning the protection of the health of women against potential hazards in their work environment.
Impact: The findings of the project will enable the Mine Health and Safety Council and the Department of Minerals and Energy to develop an industry agenda specific to women in mining. Furthermore, it will assist the mining industry to achieve the objective that 10% of the workforce in the mining industry be woman by the year 2009.
Previous research findings as well as the changing demography in the mining industry have highlighted the need for a comprehensive ergonomics programme to be implemented in the mining industry. The issues of anthropometry, workstation design, gender, functional work capacity, worker fatigue, shift cycles, chronic occupational and other diseases, and nutrition have emerged as some of the important factors affecting the health and safety of miners.
The objective of the project is three-fold: firstly to provide an anthropometric as well as a functional biomechanical database that is specific for the South African mining population. The second objective is to develop an ergonomics programme specifically for implementation in the local mining industry and to pilot the programme at a number of project mines. Finally, a handbook focussing on basic ergonomics applicable to the mining industry will be compiled, and it will be complemented by a training CD and a training DVD.
Impact: The outcome of the limited anthropometry study will address one of the current shortcomings to implementing ergonomics design in the local mining industry, which is the lack of recent information on the anthropometry and functional strength of South African miners. Information on the functional anthropometry of miners (i.e. those body dimensions that are essential for the design of workstations, mining machines and mobile equipment) will be available for the design of articles to be used at mines. A simple but practical implementation model will be developed to assist South African mines with the process of establishing ergonomics programmes in order to optimize human well-being and overall system performance.
Despite improvements to mine hearing conservation programmes (HCP), noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) continues to cost Industry some R 100 million annually in compensation claims, with even greater impacts on mine productivity/profitability and mineworkers’ quality of life. Previous research emphasised the need to improve mineworkers’ awareness and understanding of the noise hazard, as well as the consequences of exposure, to promote compliance with safe work procedures, which include the correct use of hearing protection devices. It is not uncommon to see mineworkers neglecting to wear hearing protection in noisy areas, despite the generally high levels of compliance reported for quarterly workplace inspections. Most importantly, medical surveillance findings indicate alarming shifts from Baseline that will likely lead to large numbers of mineworkers being compensated for NIHL in the next three years.
The objective of the project is to critically evaluate existing training, educational, awareness and motivational materials used in mine HCPs, to enable updates and enhancements that will improve its effectiveness. This will be achieved through improvements to materials currently in use, and the inclusion and/or identification of additional media and materials that can optimise education, motivation and training programmes within mine HCPs.
Impact: Greater commitment to the prevention of NIHL at all levels of mine employees, manifested by improved compliance with policies and procedures that have been put in place to limit risk.
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