How can your webcam improve your health Dept

How can your webcam improve your health? Dept. of Social Work: Prof. Julie Cwikel Information System Dept. : Dr. Meirav Taieb-Maimon Prof. Bracha Shapira Mr. Ido Orenstein Mr. Dudi Ben Shimon Mr. Denis Klimov

Do you recognize yourself? 2

Work station characteristics: Long work hours Fatigue Lighting Visual overload Arm position Un-natural sitting position Eating at the computer 3

Goals of the research: n To test the effectiveness over time of an innovative self-modeling photo-training method for reducing musculoskeletal risk among workers at computers. n This was compared to traditional one-time ergonomic training (pamphlets, personal advice and workstation adjustments). 4

Method for Ergonomic Estimate of Posture n RAPID UPPER LIMB ASSESSMENT (RULA) ¨ ¨ Scale from 1 -7 (1 good posture – 7 poor posture) RULA takes into account a series of angles and deviations Additional aspects 5

Description of the Experiment n 60 workers (51 from BGU and 9 from Soroka Hospital) working in different jobs (e. g. administration, research, programmers) n Age range 26 -66 n 38 Women and 22 Men n At each participant’s work station a webcam was installed that photographed at random intervals approximately each 20 mins. n 10 -15 photos were analyzed each day n Three study groups: ¨ ¨ ¨ Photo-training with personalized pop-up photos (intervention) Traditional office training Control 6

Pop-up personalized photo-training photos 7

Stages of the experiment Baseline Intervention Follow Up Control Traditional office training Photo-training (pop up remainder) Photo-training Training One week break 8

Overall Results n קבוצת Control Traditional office training Photo-training 9

Comparison between men and women Control Traditional office training Photo-training 10

Conclusions n Personal pop-ups are an effective of reminding computer users to pay attention to their work posture and may over time, improve worker health. 11