Building healthy construction workers: Their views on health, wellbeing and better workplace design.

Construction is a heavy manual industry where working into later life can be a challenge. An interview study was conducted to explore workers' understanding of their health at work and ways of making their jobs easier, safer or more comfortable. Using purposive sampling, 80 trades' workers were selected from construction sites in the UK. The Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire and Work Ability Index were used to explore aches and pains and reducing strain on the body. A high prevalence of symptoms was reported and ratings of work ability were high. Workers were aware of the physical demands of their work and had over 250 ideas around health and wellbeing e.g. rucksacks for tools, bespoke benches, adapting PPE, and higher cost solutions e.g. mechanical lifting aids. Engagement of the workforce should be encouraged and feed into change processes in the industry to enable all workers stay fit for work for longer.

The effect of experiential anchoring on the reproducibility of exercise regulation in adolescent children.

In this study, we examined whether a preparatory perceptual 'anchoring' technique would enhance the reproducibility (test-retest reliability) of adolescent children in their ability to self-regulate their exercise output on the basis of their effort perceptions. Forty-one adolescents aged 12.6 +/- 0.7 years (mean +/- s), randomly assigned to either an anchor or non-anchor group, undertook two identical production trials (three 3-min cycle ergometer bouts at levels 3, 6 and 8 of the Children's Effort Rating Table) over 8 days. Before each trial, the anchor group received an experiential (exercise) trial intended to provide a frame of reference for their perceived exertions. The test-retest reproducibility of the heart rates and power outputs produced during the production trials was assessed using intraclass correlation coefficients and 95% limits of agreement analysis. For the anchor group, the intraclass correlation coefficients ranged from 0.68 to 0.81 for heart rate and from 0.39 to 0.86 for power output. For the non-anchor group, they were generally higher: 0.86 to 0.93 and 0.81 to 0.95 for heart rate and power output, respectively. The 95% limits of agreement indicated no marked differences between the two groups in the amount of bias and within-subject error. The results suggest that among these adolescents, the implementation of an experiential anchoring protocol had no positive effect on the reproducibility of their exercise regulation during prescribed cycling.

HLA antigens on leukocyte fragments and plasma proteins: prestorage leukoreduction by filtration.

HLA alloimmunization following blood transfusion results from recipient exposure to donor alloantigens. Numerous studies have documented that intact donor leukocytes are capable of provoking primary alloimmunization and that leukoreduction can decrease the incidence of primary HLA alloimmunization. HLA antigens also exist in soluble form and are present on leukocyte cell fragments. We measured the concentration of soluble HLA class I antigen in both standard and leukoreduced blood components during storage. Although the concentration of soluble class I HLA protein varied widely among different individuals, the concentration was stable during refrigerated storage of red cell concentrates and was not affected by leukocyte reduction by filtration. We also investigated whether or not HLA antigens present on leukocyte fragments were capable of stimulating either resting or in-vitro-primed lymphocytes in the mixed lymphocyte reaction (MLR).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)