A Review on the Relationship of Ergonomics and Industrial Hygiene

Objective: The objective of this paper is to examine the scope of ergonomics in relation to the discipline of industrial hygiene. Background: There has been increasing recognition of the importance of ergonomics in the practice of industrial hygiene. As a result, quite a number of ergonomics-related research articles have been published in major industrial hygiene journals. And the professional engineers in industrial hygiene have conducted ergonomics-related activities. Method: This paper reports the results from the literature review of the ergonomics papers published in major industrial hygiene journals for the last 5 years, and the certification of industrial hygiene and ergonomics. Results: It was found that 7.7~13% of the total published papers were about ergonomics, and the number of the professional engineers in industrial hygiene is almost double of that of ergonomics. Conclusion: It should be understood that the work of ergonomic is complementary to industrial hygiene and not in competition with it. Application: Some suggestions were proposed hopefully helpful to colleague ergonomists for future research.