The working environment at visual display units

Eurofound — European Foundation For The Improvement Of Living And Working Conditions

Description

A field study
Working conditions

Sujets

• Ergonomics
• Workplace
• Dust
• Lighting
• Metrology
• Occupational safety and health
• Sociologie, société et politique

Informations

• Publié par: EUROFOUND-EUROPEAN-FOUNDATION-FOR-THE-IMPROVEMENT-OF-LIVING-AND-WORKING-CONDITIO
• Nombre de lectures: 16
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 4 Mo

Extrait

THE WORKING
ENVIRONMENT AT
VISUAL DISPLAY UNITS
A FIELO STUDY
European Foundation
for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions. THE WORKING
ENVIRONMENT AT
VISUAL DISPLAY UNITS
A FIELD STUDY
European Foundation
for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions.
Loughlinstown House.Shankill,Co. Dublin, Ireland.Tel: [phone]Telex: 30726 EURF Copyright of THE EUROPEAN FOUNDATION FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF LIVING
AND WORKING CONDITIONS, 1984.
For rights of translation or reproduction, application should be made
to the Director, European Foundation for the Improvement of Living
and Working Conditions, Loughlinstown House, Shankill, Co. Dublin,
Ireland. PREFACE
Over the last few years, the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and
Working Conditions, an autonomous research institute of the European Community,
has directed a major part of its efforts to investigating the effect of technolo­
gical developments in electronics on the working environment and work organisa­
tion. In this context, studies based on various scientific disciplines were
indicated to consider the effects of VDU work on the operators of such units.
The present report "Working with VDU's"was drawn up for the European Foundation by
V. Dreyer, S. Jensen, V. Pedersen, E. Petersen and Α. Richter.
In addition to this individual report, a consolidated report, in all official
languages of the European Community, is available and this provides a summary of
all the VDU studies initiated by the European Foundation. It is available
separately from the Foundation. Arb e j ds psyko 1 o gi
Teknologisk Institut
THE WORKING ENVIRONMENT AT
VISUAL DISPLAY UNITS
A field study
Report prepared for the European Foundation for the Improvement
of Living and Working Conditions
V. Dreyer
S. Jensen
V. Pedersen
E. Petersen
Α. Richter
November 1981 -1-
PREFACE
This work was carried out as commissioned research for the European
Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions. The n has been interested in working conditions at visual display
units (VDUs) for some time and has sponsored research in a number of
European countries covering various aspects of this progressively
developing side of working life.
An earlier report prepared by a Danish group, which was entitled "The
Working Environment at Visual Display Units - a Review of the Litera­
ture" and was published by the Foundation in the autumn of I981,
examines the most important features of our present knowledge of the
air-conditioning, lighting, ergonomie, psychological and ophthalmologi-
cal requirements in respect of the working environment at VDUs. In
its conclusions it indicates a number of problems which have not yet
been fuliy investigated scientifically.
This report does not represent research in these areas, but is an
attempt to analyse the working conditions in. a relatively large estab­
lishment by means of a multidisciplinary field study.
It enumerates the operators' own opinions of their working environment
and tries to correlate these with an objective description of the work­
ing conditions and an assessment of whether generally accepted optimum
standards are met. The working conditions in an office environment
in which VDU work is the exception are described for purposes of com­
parison and the similarities and differences between the two environ­
ments are assessed. Finally, the report tries to elucidate the effect
of changes in the working environment both when the changes are made
unilaterally by technical experts and when they are based primarily on
the employees· own proposals for changes.
The field study was carried out with such a small number of people
that it cannot be expected to provide statistical evidence for all the
conclusions reached.
Nevertheless, it is the hope of the research group that it will serve
as a methodological study and that the methods used can be applied in
future studies on a larger scale. -li-
The research group comprised the following members}
chief physician, dr. med. Viggo Dreyer (Clinic of Aviation Medicine,
Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen); lecturer, cand. psych^ Sigurd Jensen
(Department of Industrial Psychology, Technological''Institute, Copen­
hagen) ; graduate engineer Verner Pedersen (Department pf Industrial
Psychology, Technological Institute, Copenhagen); graduate engineer
Erwin Petersen (Danish Lighting Technology Laboratori Technical
University, Copenhagen); and occupational therapiat Anne Richter
(Department of Industrial Psychology, Technological Institute,
Copenhagen).