Effects of Obesity and Age on Fall Risk - Implications for Safety Guidelines

这项工作的长期目标是制定预防跌倒的指南，以保护 肥胖和年长的员工，因为目前的指南没有考虑到 这些亚群。提出了两个具体目标。第一个目标将决定效果 肥胖和年龄增加对滑倒、绊倒和失去平衡的风险的影响 建筑工程。我们的重点是滑倒、绊倒和失去平衡，因为它们是 最常被报道的导致工作场所跌倒的因素。这一目标也将集中于 关于建筑工程(即有很高跌倒风险的工作)的实际情况 可能导致滑倒、绊倒或失去平衡，这些都可以遵循安全指南来减少 跌倒的风险。第二个目标将确定肥胖和年龄增加对平衡和 滑倒和绊倒后恢复平衡。这两个目标的结果将改善我们的 了解为什么肥胖和年龄较大的工人跌倒的风险增加。结果是 也可以被政策制定者用来制定修订的防坠落安全指南或 保护肥胖和年长工人的安全设计。这项研究在两个方面都是新颖的 方面。首先，它在针对肥胖、老龄化和工作的主要和交互影响方面是新颖的 建筑业的平衡经验。而衰老对平衡的主要影响 已经进行了广泛的研究，肥胖的影响，经验，以及它们与 尽管肥胖和肥胖老年人的数量不断增加，但老龄化问题几乎没有受到关注 建筑工人。第二，它包括在现实工作条件下进行测试，以便 结果可以更容易地转化为安全指南和/或安全设计，以减少 肥胖工人跌倒的风险。这项研究还有一个额外的好处，即虽然专注于 在建筑业方面，一些结果也适用于其他职业部门。

The long-term goal of this work is to develop fall prevention guidelines that are protective for obese and older workers because current guidelines do not account for the special needs of these subpopulations. Two specific aims are proposed. The first aim will determine the effects of obesity and increased age on risk of slipping, tripping, and losing balance during simulated construction work. Our focus is on slips, trips, and loss of balance because they are among the most commonly reported contributing factors to falls in the workplace. This aim will also focus on realistic situations in construction work (i.e. work that has an inherent high risk for falls) that can lead to a slip, trip, or loss of balance, and that are amenable to safety guidelines to reduce fall risk. The second aim will determine the effects of obesity and increased age on balance and balance recovery after slipping and tripping. The results from both aims will improve our understanding as to why obese and older workers are at an increased risk of falls. The results can also be used by policy makers to develop revised fall-prevention safety guidelines or designs for safety that are protective for obese and older workers. This research is novel in two aspects. First, it is novel in targeting the main and interactive effects of obesity, aging, and work experience on balance in the construction industry. While the main effects of aging on balance have been studied extensively, the effects of obesity, experience, and their interaction with aging have received little attention despite the growing number of obese and obese older construction workers. Second, it includes testing under realistic working conditions so that results can be more-readily translated to safety guidelines and/or designs for safety to reduce the risk of falls in obese workers. This research has the added benefit that, while focused on construction, several of the results are applicable to other occupational sectors.