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Occupational Well-Being: Enhancing Safety and Ergonomics in the Work Environment

A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Applied Biosciences and Bioengineering".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 May 2025 | Viewed by 2610

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Personal Protective Equipment, Central Institute for Labour Protection – National Research Institute, Wierzbowa 48, 90-133 Lodz, Poland
Interests: protective clothing; OSH; PPE; smart materials; smart clothing; ergonomics; thermal comfort; wearables; IoT
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Personal Protective Equipment, Central Institute for Labour Protection – National Research Institute, Wierzbowa 48, 90-133 Lodz, Poland
Interests: occupational exposure; respiratory protection; face and eye protection; OSH; PPE; human factors; wearables; IoT
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Recent advances in computer science, electronics, and material engineering profoundly impact our daily lives. We have become more accustomed to wearables that monitor our health, sleep quality, or physical activity and offer personalized recommendations through embedded AI technology. This technological progress, combined with growing familiarity and societal acceptance of such technologies, as well as increased awareness regarding safety and health at work, has significantly accelerated the adoption of new technologies by companies operating in hazardous and multi-risk environments to enhance occupational health and safety and well-being.

Therefore, in this Special Issue titled “Occupational Well-being: Enhancing Safety and Ergonomics in the Work Environment”, we invite you to submit original articles, reviews, and short communications that advance knowledge in the following areas:

  • Innovations in smart Personal Protective Equipment (PPE);
  • Integration of IoT and smart materials to create safer, more ergonomic workspaces across various settings, highlighting the contributions of Industry 4.0/5.0;
  • Applications of AR/MR/VR/XR in occupational safety training;
  • Implementation of cyber-physical systems to monitor health risks and ergonomics, with the aim of preventing injuries and improving workplace safety;
  • Use of wearables for real-time monitoring of health and environmental conditions, facilitating immediate interventions at work;
  • Development of innovative materials for safer work equipment, including self-healing and environmentally responsive properties, among others;
  • Leveraging IoT for data-driven improvements in workplace safety policies and practices;
  • Applying smart automation and data analysis to enhance ergonomic conditions and reduce physical strain in the workplace;
  • Other related topics.

Dr. Anna Dąbrowska
Dr. Małgorzata Okrasa
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Applied Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • occupational safety and health
  • smart personal protective equipment
  • smart working environment
  • internet of things
  • cyber-physical system
  • Industry 4.0/Industry 5.0
  • wearables
  • smart materials
  • AR/MR/VR/XR

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

19 pages, 2444 KiB  
Article
Rapid Risk Assessment in Industry: Increasing Awareness of Worker Safety in Industrial Activities
by Adrian Ispășoiu, Ioan Milosan, Camelia Gabor and Gheorghe Oancea
Appl. Sci. 2024, 14(19), 8918; https://doi.org/10.3390/app14198918 - 3 Oct 2024
Viewed by 1108
Abstract
When training engineers and team leaders, it is crucial to focus on cultivating essential skills for safety at work, required in both theoretical design and practical application. One such crucial skill is the ability to assess professional risks across all engineering domains. To [...] Read more.
When training engineers and team leaders, it is crucial to focus on cultivating essential skills for safety at work, required in both theoretical design and practical application. One such crucial skill is the ability to assess professional risks across all engineering domains. To promote sustainable safety awareness in workplaces and to initiate the early education and training of engineering workers through training and testing, we developed a software application and tested it among Romanian workers. This software facilitates the management of the entire risk assessment process, further enhancing the training experience. The presented methodology used for learning, testing, and assessing the skills of engineering workers and for risk assessment, called EL-PRAI (Engineering Learning and Professional Risks Assessment in Industry), was tested on 238 workers (engineers and team leaders) from different engineering fields. The results obtained and the workers’ positive feedback support a broader use of the software application for educating engineers and team leaders on workplace safety. If the engineers and team leaders understand the risks at their workplaces well, they will be able to properly train their subordinate workers and order appropriate measures before starting activities. Full article
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19 pages, 440 KiB  
Article
Evaluation of the Training Process of Health and Safety at Work in Industry through Digitalization—Case Study: Position in Organization
by Petru-Iulian Mureșan, Ioan Milosan, Mariela Pavalache-Ilie, Camelia Gabor and Gheorghe Oancea
Appl. Sci. 2024, 14(18), 8502; https://doi.org/10.3390/app14188502 - 20 Sep 2024
Viewed by 1017
Abstract
This study analyses the opinion of 200 employees who participated in the first online training in the field of occupational health and safety systems (OSHs) from Romania, for which an online platform was used, with the records on electronic files with a qualified [...] Read more.
This study analyses the opinion of 200 employees who participated in the first online training in the field of occupational health and safety systems (OSHs) from Romania, for which an online platform was used, with the records on electronic files with a qualified electronic signature. The usefulness of this online training was analyzed based on the voluntary answers of the participants to a questionnaire related to 14 questionnaire items (QIs). In order to correctly interpret the results of the applied test, a statistical processing of the answers was carried out, and the following were calculated (using SPSS 23.0 software): the factor analysis, the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) test, the Bartlett’s test, the extraction method, the Principal Component Analysis (PCA), the Cronbach alpha test and the Kruskal–Wallis H-test. The calculations highlighted two essential strategies: “Availability for online training” (S1) and “Challenges of online training” (S2). The conclusion of this study provides an overview of the importance of online training strategies in OSH activity and can help researchers and practitioners to improve this activity, reducing the rejection of its use among managers and authorities, thus providing a new reference for future research. Full article
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