4. Conclusions

3.3. What is the relationship of positive ergonomics with occupational health?

life.

16 Occupational Health

takings [91].

eth century.

used.

the health and well-being of workers".

Occupational health refers to a series of actions that aim at protecting workers and reducing the risk of equipment, and machinery and attempting to prevent work accidents, injuries and illnesses, and providing safe work environment. Occupational health intervenes in all areas of

In 1957, the first Joint ILO/WHO Committee of Occupational Health assembled, and identified areas of interest in occupational health in the following: (1) the maintenance and promotion of workers' health and working capacity; (2) the improvement of working environment and work to become conducive to safety and health; (3) the development of work organizations and working cultures in a direction which supports health and safety at work; and (4) the promotion of a positive social climate to smooth operations and enhance productivity of the under-

Alli [92] believes that occupational safety and health is "the science of the anticipation, recognition, evaluation, and control of hazards arising in or from the workplace that could impair

But how occupational safety tried to implement industrial safety at work environment? When considering the legacy of occupational health, we find that two approaches were adopted throughout of its history. These are: professional harmonization and ergonomics approaches.

The professional harmonization approach is concerned with minimizing loss by aiding in the preservation and protection of both human and other physical assets in the workplace. It primarily involves monitoring the workplace and advising employers or management on the best ways to prevent and minimize losses [93]. In order for this approach to be successful, authorities must do a series of actions including tough selection and training of workers. Workers are not selected based on fitting the direct requirement of work only, but based on fitting indirect requirements as well. Other features such as accident proneness [94], various obsessions [95], mental toughness [96], etc., are important issues for the success in the twenti-

The ergonomic approach is concerned with implementing ergonomics principles at work. Authorities are requested to make sure that ergonomics principles are applied in the work area [97]. When applied, occupational health will improve [98, 99]. Here, it is to mention that designing or redesigning tools, machines, equipment, workplaces, and work environment to fit the physical parts of the workers is not enough. Data concerning other aspects of the worker, for example, cognitive capacities, emotional skills, and spiritual aptitudes should also be collected to be used in designing or redesigning work. This new orientation of ergonomics takes into account the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of the human factor. It is based on the idea that the workers can be happy at work only if they feel that the needs of these different aspects

are saturated. This is what the new approach to occupational health, aspires to achieve.

To be sure about the effectiveness of twenty-first century occupational health, the two abovementioned approaches (professional harmonization and ergonomics) are to be sequentially The official age of ergonomics is now about 66 years. In this long life, ergonomics has witnessed many developments. Some of them have been on the level of subject matter, for example, cognitive ergonomics in the 1960s, organizational ergonomics in the 1970s, positive ergonomics in the 1980s, emotional ergonomics in 1990s and spiritual ergonomics in the new millennium. Some other developments have been on the methodological level, for example, the use of qualitative methods in the 1980s and mixed methods in the 1990s.

In this chapter, we shed light on subject matter developments where we discussed positive ergonomics with its subsequent design, i.e., the positive design. Then emotional ergonomics with its consequent emotional design were debated. At the end, the newly born development, i.e., the spiritual ergonomics with spiritual design were discussed. Our hope is that future research will ponder greatly into these developments. Time in which these important human personality aspects (emotions and spiritual aspects) have been excluded or left out has gone and may never return.

If ergonomics takes these issues into account, it will not only succeed, but it will spread widely among the people of the earth from different orientations and religions.
