Noise, vibration, and low temperature render specific occupational hazards to labor employees. The purpose of this research was to investigate the combined effects of these three physical hazards on employees' physiological parameters. The Taguchi experimental method was used to simulate different exposure conditions caused by noise, vibration, and low temperature, and their effects on the physiological parameters of the test takers were measured. The data were then analyzed using statistical methods to evaluate the combined effects of these three factors on human health. Results showed that the factor that influenced the finger skin temperature, manual dexterity, and mean artery pressure (MAP) most was air temperature, and exposure time was the second most influential factor. Noise was found to be the major factor responsible for hearing loss; in this case, hand-arm vibration and temperature had no effect at all. During the study, the temperature was confined in the 5-25°C range (which was not sufficient to study the effects at extremely high- and low-temperature working conditions) because the combined effects of even two factors were very complicated. For example, the combined effects of hand-arm vibration and low temperature might lead to occupational hazards such as vibration-induced white finger syndrome in working labors. Further studies concerning the occupational damage caused by the combined effects of hazardous factors need to be conducted in the future.

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In this study, a semi-quantitative occupational chemical exposure risk prediction model, based on the calculation of exposure hazard indexes, was proposed, corrected, and applied to a national chemical exposure databank. The model comprises one factor used to describe toxicity (i.e., the toxicity index), and two factors used to reflect the exposure potential (i.e., the exposure index and protection deficiency index) of workers exposed to chemicals. An expert system was used to correct the above proposed model. By applying the corrected model to data obtained from a national occupational chemical hazard survey program, chemical exposure risks of various manufacturing industries were determined and a national control strategy for the abatement of occupational chemical exposures was proposed. The results of the present study would provide useful information for governmental agencies to allocate their limited resources effectively for reducing chemical exposures of workers.

International Organization for Standardization 7933 standard provides evaluation of required sweat rate (RSR) and predicted heat strain (PHS). This study examined and validated the approximations in these models estimating respiratory heat flows (RHFs) via convection (C ) and evaporation (E) for application to Taiwanese foundry workers. The influence of change in RHF approximation to the validity of heat strain prediction in these models was also evaluated. The metabolic energy consumption and physiological quantities of these workers performing at different workloads under elevated wet-bulb globe temperature (30.3 ± 2.5 °C) were measured on-site and used in the calculation of RHFs and indices of heat strain. As the results show, the RSR model overestimated the C for Taiwanese workers by approximately 3 % and underestimated the E by 8 %. The C approximation in the PHS model closely predicted the convective RHF, while the E approximation over-predicted by 11 %. Linear regressions provided better fit in C approximation (R = 0.96) than in E approximation (R ≤ 0.85) in both models. The predicted C deviated increasingly from the observed value when the WBGT reached 35 °C. The deviations of RHFs observed for the workers from those predicted using the RSR or PHS models did not significantly alter the heat loss via the skin, as the RHFs were in general of a level less than 5 % of the metabolic heat consumption. Validation of these approximations considering thermo-physiological responses of local workers is necessary for application in scenarios of significant heat exposure.

The hearing condition of the Taiwanese aerospace maintenance workers affected by the low frequency noise had not been reported. The purpose of this research is to clarify the maintenance workers' health effect when exposed to low frequency and/or general noises and to understand the relationship between the variations of the worker's echocardiographic E/A ratio and the low frequency noise. The low frequency noise monitoring and echocardiographic E/A ratio results obtained for 213 aerospace maintenance workers indicated that the workers' hearing loss was more serious at high frequency 4k and 6k when exposed to the low frequency noise and could be more than 40 dB. The abnormality of echocardiographic E/A ratio was also higher than that of control group.