Occupational Safety and Health with Technological Developments in Livestock Farms: A Literature Review.

In recent decades, there have been considerable technological developments in the agriculture sector to automate manual processes for many factors, including increased production demand and in response to labor shortages/costs. We conducted a review of the literature to summarize the key advances from installing emerging technology and studies on robotics and automation to improve agricultural practices. The main objective of this review was to survey the scientific literature to identify the uses of these new technologies in agricultural practices focusing on new or reduced occupational safety risks affecting agriculture workers. We screened 3248 articles with the following criteria: (1) relevance of the title and abstract with occupational safety and health; (2) agriculture technologies/applications that were available in the United States; (3) written in English; and (4) published 2015-2020. We found 624 articles on crops and harvesting and 80 articles on livestock farming related to robotics and automated systems. Within livestock farming, most (78%) articles identified were related to dairy farms, and 56% of the articles indicated these farms were using robotics routinely. However, our review revealed gaps in how the technology has been evaluated to show the benefits or potential hazards to the safety and well-being of livestock owners/operators and workers.

Effect of boot weight and sole flexibility on gait and physiological responses of firefighters in stepping over obstacles.

OBJECTIVE: The authors investigated the effect of boot weight and sole flexibility on spatiotemporal gait characteristics and physiological responses of firefighters in negotiating obstacles. BACKGROUND: Falls and overexertion are the leading causes of fire ground injuries and fatalities among firefighters. There have been few in-depth studies conducted to evaluate the risk factors of falls and overexertion associated with firefighter boots. METHOD: For the study, 13 female and 14 male firefighters, while wearing full turnout clothing and randomly assigned boots, walked for 5 min while stepping over obstacles. The independent variables included boot weight, sole flexibility, gender, and task duration. Spatiotemporal measures of foot trajectories and toe clearance were determined. Minute ventilation, oxygen consumption, carbon dioxide production, and heart rate were measured. RESULTS: Increased boot weight was found to significantly reduce trailing toe clearance when crossing the 30-cm obstacle. Significant increases in lateral displacement of the foot were found near the end of the 5-min walk compared with the beginning of the task Increased boot weight significantly increased oxygen consumption. There were significant decreases in oxygen consumption for more flexible soles. CONCLUSION: Firefighters were more likely to trip over obstacles when wearing heavier boots and after walking for a period of time. Boot weight affected metabolic variables (5% to 11% increases per 1-kg increase in boot weight), which were mitigated by sole flexibility (5% to 7% decrease for more flexible soles). APPLICATION: This study provides useful information for firefighters and boot manufacturers in boot selection and design for reducing falls and overexertion.