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Owing to the increased use of nanomaterials, the number of employees and professionals who are exposed to these chemicals is on the rise, despite the paucity of organized data on the possible dangers associated with exposure to these compounds. Multiple studies reveal that the lack of nanosafety awareness among employees and businesses is a serious problem that must be addressed. This shortage of information may result from insufficient knowledge generation or transmission. Academic publications play a significant role in producing new knowledge. This study presents a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of published research on workplace nanosafety which this bibliometric analysis aims to establish the permeability and significance of nanosafety themes from an occupational safety and health viewpoint in academia, to gain a better understanding of the knowledge generation phase in the area, and detected advantages and disadvantages of the topic. Scopus was used as the data source in this study. A total of 1,170 publications were gathered and analyzed. The results indicated that the United States is a leader in several aspects of nanosafety at the workplace. The synthesis of co-citation and author-keyword phrases provided insight into determining the focal points of the current study. Analysis of meta data indicates that the number of writers is rising. Nanomaterial toxicity, risk assessment, and occupational exposure are the three hottest topics in this field, according to the result. In addition, the findings included worldwide growth rate, collaborative research fields, keywords, journals, and funding agencies. The advantages and disadvantages of the knowledge creation phase of nanosafety at the workplace were examined in the conclusion.

BACKGROUND: Our purpose was to investigate whether healthy lifestyle habits prevent disability pension among female healthcare workers.METHODS: We conducted a prospective cohort study with an 11-year register follow-up in which 8159 female healthcare workers from Denmark completed a questionnaire concerning self-rated health, work environment, leisure-time physical activity (LTPA), smoking, and body mass index (BMI). Data on disability benefit payments were obtained from the Danish Register for Evaluation of Marginalization during an 11-year follow-up. Potential confounders included age, occupational education, psychosocial work factors, and physical exertion during work.RESULTS: Among workers in good health at baseline, smoking, obesity, and low levels of LTPA were risk factors for disability pension during 11-year follow-up. Among workers with poor health, only low levels of physical activity were a risk factor for disability pension.CONCLUSIONS: This underscores the importance of a healthy lifestyle, specially being physically active, for preventing premature exit from the labor market in female healthcare workers.

Purpose – Worksites have been targeted as an important setting for physical activity interventions. A recent emphasis for health promoters is the use of point-of-choice interventions to encourage stair climbing at work. The purpose of this paper is to explore three point-of-choice campaigns to increase stair climbing at work. Design/methodology/approach – Ten focus groups and a rating task were conducted with 59 employees from a University and a University Hospital in the UK. Focus groups were structured around three messages and four prompts and sought to explore the motivational power of the resources, identify factors contributing to their effectiveness and provide recommendations to improve and optimize content. Benefits and barriers to stair climbing at work were also explored. Focus groups were recorded, transcribed and coded to identify key themes. Findings – Intra-personal factors health, motivation, social norms and time management influence stair climbing at work. Critically, extra-personal factors associated with the worksite itself can also bias a traveler’s choice independently of any intervention. Results suggest that messages targeting heart health have the greatest impact on reported propensity to climb the stairs at work. Messages targeting rate of respiration for fitness, however, may have a negative effect given that most people want to avoid getting out of breath at work. Originality/value – Qualitative research is essential for developing and refining the design detail of point-of-choice interventions and tailoring their components to address individuals’ needs in different settings but there is little evidence of this in practice.

Occupational musculoskeletal disorders in the upper limbs and its consequences on the impact and prevalence in the work force are subject of many investigations in almost all the production fields. However, the exposure to this kind of risk factor on urban gardeners has not been well studied so far. The kind of plant varieties used in the parks, the tools that they use, as much as the necessary actions for the maintenance of the park, have an impact on the biomechanical overload of the upper limbs. Additionally, the analysis of the exposure to the biomechanical overload on upper limbs in gardening work is a complex task, mainly because it is an activity highly variable and of annual cycle. For this reason an analytical model for risk exposure evaluation is necessary. During this research the work activity of 29 gardeners in 3 urban parks of Barcelona has been analyzed. Each park has a specific acting plan, in relation with the quantity and the typology of vegetal species, its classification and the season of the year. Work and observation and video recording sessions on-site were conducted. The video-graphic registration was done on workers without any prior musculoskeletal disorder and with a minimum labour experience of 5 years. Moreover, the analysis of saturation time, considered as the relation of the repetitive working hours in reference with the hours of effective work was done. Using the registered tasks on video, the biomechanical overload on upper limbs applying the OCRA Checklist method was analyzed. Results: A methodological procedure to analyze the risk exposure in annual working cycle has been proposed. The results that we got allow us to get information that can help in the assignment of the tasks and in the training of staff, as well as in the recommendations of the urban landscape’s design. All these aspects have the goal to decrease the risk to develop work-related musculoskeletal disorders

Objective. This study assessed the environmental characteristics of ten universities, comparing the extent to which physical infra-structures are able to support a route-based walking intervention. Method. Following protocol standardization between and within sites, major pedestrian routes at main suburban campuses in seven countries (Australia, Canada, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Spain and the United States) were audited by researchers using an established inventory (March–June 2008). The inventory assessed key characteristics (e.g. size and employee number) and nine specific items (pedestrian facilities, vehicle conflicts, crossings, route-maintenance, walkway width, roadway buffer, universal accessibility, aesthetics and cover), scored on a five-point scale (1=very poor; 5=excellent). Item scores for each route, were combined and weighted, to provide indicators of low (score of 20–39), fair (score of 40–69), or good (score of 70–100) physical infra-structure support. Results. Sites varied in area (range of 7–1000 acres) and employee numbers (range of 700–7500 employees). Audits reported good support for route-based walking at seven sites (overall route score range=72.5±13.9–82.2±17.4), fair support at two sites (overall route score of 69.1±11.7 and 61.7±14.6), and low support at one site (overall route score of 22.1±7.3). Conclusions. Study methods highlight a valuable audit process, while findings identify the need to improve aspects of physical infra-structure at sites where the built environment may be less conducive for route-based walking.

Background Previous studies have shown that immigrant workers face relatively worse working and employment conditions, as well as lower rates of sickness absence than native-born workers. This study aims to assess rates of sickness presenteeism in a sample of Spanish-born and foreign-born workers according to different characteristics. Methods A cross-sectional survey was conducted amongst a convenience sample of workers (Spanish-born and foreign-born), living in four Spanish cities: Barcelona, Huelva, Madrid and Valencia (2008-2009). Sickness presenteeism information was collected through two items in the questionnaire ("Have you had health problems in the last year?" and "Have you ever had to miss work for any health problem?") and was defined as worker who had a health problem (answered yes, first item) and had not missed work (answered no, second item). For the analysis, the sample of 2,059 workers (1,617 foreign-born) who answered yes to health problems was included. After descriptives, logistic regressions were used to establish the association between origin country and sickness presenteeism (adjusted odds ratios aOR; 95% confidence interval 95%CI). Analyses were stratified per time spent in Spain among foreign-born workers. Results All of the results refer to the comparison between foreign-born and Spanish-born workers as a whole, and in some categories relating to personal and occupational conditions. Foreign-born workers were more likely to report sickness presenteeism compared with their Spanish-born counterparts, especially those living in Spain for under 2 years [Prevalence: 42% in Spanish-born and 56.3% in Foreign-born; aOR 1.77 95%CI 1.24-2.53]. In case of foreign-born workers (with time in Spain < 2 years), men [aOR 2.31 95%CI 1.40-3.80], those with university studies [aOR 3.01 95%CI 1.04-8.69], temporary contracts [aOR 2.26 95%CI 1.29-3.98] and salaries between 751-1,200€ per month [aOR 1.74 95% CI 1.04-2.92] were more likely to report sickness presenteeism. Also, recent immigrants with good self-perceived health and good mental health were more likely to report presenteeism than Spanish-born workers with the same good health indicators. Conclusions Immigrant workers report more sickness presenteeism than their Spanish-born counterparts. These results could be related to precarious work and employment conditions of immigrants. Immigrant workers should benefit from the same standards of social security, and of health and safety in the workplace that are enjoyed by Spanish workers.