set, since these techniques are more accurate and po-
tentially more reliable than the others (David, 2005).
Furthermore, using sensors instead of observational
methods promotes time-efficient assessments that do
not rely on video inspection. Also, creating a com-
bined system that uses direct methods and ques-
tionnaires to assess occupational exposure represents
progress and improvements compared to the tools that
have already been developed.
Ethical and privacy issues may be regarded while
defining the mini-apps that integrate the acquisition
of data from sensors. For example, data from the
microphone could expose environmental risk factors
while being acquired during the whole usage of the
application, however continuous audio recordings at
the workplace arise significant privacy concerns, and
therefore, the way this information is stored and the
periods at which it is acquired, should be well defined.
In the future, there are three main objectives: (1)
calculate the user’s ergonomic risks; (2) provide rec-
ommendations to reduce them; and (3) create users’
profiles to (a) keep historical records of users and (b)
extrapolate the assessment to new similar cases.
To calculate the scores from the information gath-
ered in each mini-app, the data obtained from the re-
sponses of the questionnaires and from the sensing as-
sessments is processed and combined to obtain a sin-
gle risk measure converted into a well-defined scale,
as proposed by (Rodrigues et al., 2021). In addition
to this, other risk factors that constitute the variabil-
ity between workers, such as age, gender, alcohol and
smoking habits must also be included in the applica-
tion.
It would be extremely important to present the re-
sults of each mini-app to the user in a way that is eas-
ily interpretable and allows them to be made aware of
their exposure to WRDs and the risks that contribute
to them. According to a study (Silva, 2012), these
assessments have proven to increase worker comfort
and reduce risk factors in their offices. Associated
with this, it is planned to incorporate a set of recom-
mendations that can be presented to the user based on
the identified risks.
With the continuous acquisition of data over time,
historical information can be stored and used to create
a more detailed and robust assessment of the occupa-
tional exposure experienced by the user. In addition,
with historical records of multiple users, it is possible
to create relevant profiles. Newly incoming users that
fit into these can have better answers even when little
data is available.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work was partly supported by Science and Tech-
nology Foundation (FCT), under the project PRE-
VOCUPAI (DSAIPA/AI/0105/2019). The authors
have no conflicts of interest to report.
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