title: Assessing floor slipperiness in fast-food restaurants in Taiwan using objective and subjective measures.
abstract: Slips and falls are major problems in occupational injuries in which floor slipperiness is a critical issue. Most of the studies on slipperiness assessments were conducted in laboratories. Field assessments are rarely reported in the literature. This study investigated floor slipperiness in seven kitchen areas of 10 western-style fast-food restaurants in Taiwan using both objective and subjective measurements which were conducted by friction measurements and by employees' ratings of floor slipperiness, respectively. The friction measurement results showed that the sink area had the lowest average friction in the kitchens. Employees, however, rated both the sink and back vat (chicken fry) areas as the most slippery areas. The Pearson's and Spearman's correlation coefficients between the averaged friction coefficients and subjective ratings for all 70 evaluated areas across all 10 restaurants were 0.49 and 0.45, respectively, with p < 0.0001 for both. The results indicate that average friction coefficient and perception are in fair agreement, suggesting that both might be reasonably good indicators of slipperiness.
authors.affiliation: Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety, Hopkinton, MA 01748, USA. wen.chang@libertymutual.com
authors.forename: Wen-Ruey
authors.initials: WR
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.forename: Kai Way
authors.initials: KW
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Yueng-Hsiang
authors.initials: YH
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: Alfred
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Filiaggi
authors.forename: Theodore K
authors.initials: TK
authors.lastname: Courtney
mesh_terms: D000058:Accidental Falls / Q000517:prevention & control*; D005260:Female; D005430:Floors and Floorcoverings; D017276:Friction; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D016272:Occupational Health; D012147:Restaurants; D018570:Risk Assessment; D013624:Taiwan