title: Major health risk factors in Iranian hand-woven carpet industry.
abstract: This paper reviews the role and importance of small-scale industries together with the issue of occupational health problems and their causes in Iranian hand-woven carpet industry as a typical informal small-scale industry in an industrially developing country. The objective of this paper is to review health risk factors and related occupational health and ergonomic problems in the carpet industry. Since the overwhelming majority of weavers' health problems originate from ergonomic risk factors, it is concluded that any improvement program in this industry should focus on ergonomic aspects. To assess ergonomic conditions in weaving workshops, a checklist has been developed and an ergonomics index indicating the ergonomic conditions of the workshop has been proposed. To test and verify the checklist, 50 weaving workshops were visited and their ergonomic conditions were assessed. Based on the results some modifications were made and the checklist was shown to be an effective tool.
authors.affiliation: School of Public Health and Institute of Public Health Research, Occupational Health Department, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, PO Box 14155-6446, Tehran, I.R. Iran. alrchoobin@sums.ac.ir
authors.forename: Alireza
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Choobineh
authors.forename: Houshang
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Shahnavaz
authors.forename: Mohammadali
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lahmi
mesh_terms: D012090:Cumulative Trauma Disorders / Q000209:etiology; D006804:Ergonomics; D005430:Floors and Floorcoverings; D006230:Hand Injuries / Q000209:etiology; D006801:Humans; D007492:Iran; D009140:Musculoskeletal Diseases / Q000209:etiology; D016273:Occupational Exposure; D012307:Risk Factors; D012449:Safety; D017751:Safety Management; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D013783:Textile Industry / Q000379:methods*; D000078329:Workforce