Annals of Occupational and Environmental Medicine

  • Volume 35
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  • Pages.24.1-24.15
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  • 2023
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  • 1225-3618(pISSN)
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  • 2052-4374(eISSN)
The Korean Society of Occupational & Environmental Medicine (대한직업환경의학회)
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Development of algorithm for work intensity evaluation using excess overwork index of construction workers with real-time heart rate measurement device

  • Jae-young Park (Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Seoul St. Mary's Hospital, College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea) ;
  • Jung Hwan Lee (Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Hanyang University) ;
  • Mo-Yeol Kang (Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Seoul St. Mary's Hospital, College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea) ;
  • Tae-Won Jang (Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Hanyang University Guri Hospital, College of Medicine, Hanyang University) ;
  • Hyoung-Ryoul Kim (Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Seoul St. Mary's Hospital, College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea) ;
  • Se-Yeong Kim (Department of Preventive and Occupational Medicine, School of Medicine, Pusan National University) ;
  • Jongin Lee (Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Seoul St. Mary's Hospital, College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea)
  • Received : 2023.03.16
  • Accepted : 2023.06.08
  • Published : 2023.12.31
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Abstract

Background: The construction workers are vulnerable to fatigue due to high physical workload. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between overwork and heart rate in construction workers and propose a scheme to prevent overwork in advance. Methods: We measured the heart rates of construction workers at a construction site of a residential and commercial complex in Seoul from August to October 2021 and develop an index that monitors overwork in real-time. A total of 66 Korean workers participated in the study, wearing real-time heart rate monitoring equipment. The relative heart rate (RHR) was calculated using the minimum and maximum heart rates, and the maximum acceptable working time (MAWT) was estimated using RHR to calculate the workload. The overwork index (OI) was defined as the cumulative workload evaluated with the MAWT. An appropriate scenario line (PSL) was set as an index that can be compared to the OI to evaluate the degree of overwork in real-time. The excess overwork index (EOI) was evaluated in real-time during work performance using the difference between the OI and the PSL. The EOI value was used to perform receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis to find the optimal cut-off value for classification of overwork state. Results: Of the 60 participants analyzed, 28 (46.7%) were classified as the overwork group based on their RHR. ROC curve analysis showed that the EOI was a good predictor of overwork, with an area under the curve of 0.824. The optimal cut-off values ranged from 21.8% to 24.0% depending on the method used to determine the cut-off point. Conclusion: The EOI showed promising results as a predictive tool to assess overwork in real-time using heart rate monitoring and calculation through MAWT. Further research is needed to assess physical workload accurately and determine cut-off values across industries.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

The authors thank Ji-Woong Han, a student of Yonsei University, who collected data every day during the study period. Resident physicians of Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine in Seoul St. Mary's Hospital cleaned the data. We collected data from a construction site of YOUNGSHINE corporation. We thank to them for their full support. Seoul Institute of Technology funded and supported this study.

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