Study of physical workload and heat stress among housing construction workers

Abstract

Construction sites are known to exhibit hot and harsh environment. Highly physical demanding task done by the construction workers made them one of the highest physical to heat stress related cases globally. Therefore, heat stress and physical workload needed to be investigated prior to numerous accidents happening in the construction site. The objective of this study is to determine the perception level of physical workload and heat stress among the housing construction workers in Malaysia. Currently, there is lacking of research for measuring heat stress and physical workload in a construction site particularly in Malaysia. Methodologically, this paper uses the perception method for measuring the physical workload and heat stress and direct measurement is used to measure heat stress level. Construction workers made up of carpenters (n=31) and bar benders (n=14) were interviewed face to face through the questionnaire. Perception level was measured using the one to five Likert Scale. The analysis done were descriptive test, Mann Whitney test, ranking of parameters by mean score, and Spearman correlation test to determine the strength of relationship between the parameters. Overall, the perception of physical workload was found to be at an average mean score of 4. However, heat stress mean score is above than average of 4.5 indicating the perception are nearing to high level of heat stress. Using the direct measurement, it is found out that, the maximum temperature in a construction site in Malaysia can reached up to 35oC. The WBGT data supports the perception of heat stress data. Among the limitations occurred by the researcher is the language barrier of the workers involved during the interviews, so the researcher tried as best to comprehend them to obtain the best result.