Quantitative Assessment of Work-related Hand-arm Vibration
Exposure Among Workers in the Construction, Underground Coal
Mining, Wood Working, and Metal Working Industry: The German
Hand-arm Vibration Study

Quantitative Assessment of Work-related Hand-arm Vibration
Exposure Among Workers in the Construction, Underground Coal
Mining, Wood Working, and Metal Working Industry: The German
Hand-arm Vibration Study

Exposure assessment
German hand-arm vibration study
Hand-arm vibration

Standardized exposure assessments were conducted to quantify the historical occupational
exposure to hand-arm vibration of workers in the German construction, underground coal mining,
woodworking, and metalworking industries.
Methods: A two-step approach was used to assess historical vibration exposure. In the first step, individual work histories were reconstructed by standardized personal interviews. The interview focused on
the identification of relevant power tools used throughout the working life. In the second step, an
equipment-exposure-matrix was constructed by industrial hygiene measurements. By linking the power
tools in the work history to the equipment-exposure-matrix, individual daily, and long-term vibration
exposures can be quantified.
Results and conclusions: A total of 423 power tools were identified for 5,115 exposure segments over a
period of 50 years. 97.2% of the vibration values were based on industrial hygiene measurements. The
total vibration value (ahv) of the power tools used varied between 0.8 m/s2 and 65.2 m/s2 with a median
value of 14.2 m/s2
. The median value of cumulative vibration exposure is Dhv ¼ 121,971 (range: 23-
3,374,640) m2
/s4
$day, corresponding to a daily vibration exposure of ahv(8) ¼ 7 m/s2 for 2489 working
days (11.3 years).
This study provides a detailed description of hand-arm vibration exposure among workers in the related
industries studied. Our analyses indicate that the quantification of daily vibration exposure is often
uncertain and should be interpreted with caution. In contrast, cumulative vibration exposure is a more
reliable exposure parameter for describing general working conditions and for guiding the prevention
and compensation of vibration-related health problems.

Yi Sun 1,*, Frank Bochmann 1
, Winfried Eckert 2
, Benjamin Ernst 3
, Christian Freitag 3
,
Uwe Kaulbars 6
, Uwe Nigmann 4
, Christina Samel 1
, Christian van den Berg 5
,
Nastaran Raffler 3

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1Unit Exposure Monitoring and Cause-Effect Relationships, Institute for Occupational Safety and Health of the German Social Accident Insurance (IFA),
Sankt Augustin, Germany
2German Social Accident Insurance Institution for the Building Trade, Stuttgart, Germany
3Unit Vibration, Institute for Occupational Safety and Health of the German Social Accident Insurance (IFA), Sankt Augustin, Germany
4German Social Accident Insurance Institution for the Woodworking and Metalworking Industries, Dusseldorf, Germany
5German Social Accident Insurance Institution for the Raw Materials and Chemical Industry, Bochum, Germany
6 Engineer, Office for Human Vibration in Workplaces, Bonn, Germany

4 January 202

FAJAR BAGUS W

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