A field survey of hand–arm vibration exposure in the UK utilities sector

Purpose: Excessive exposure to HAV can lead to hand-arm vibration syndrome (HAVS) which is a major health and well-being issue that can irreparably damage to the neurological, vascular and muscular skeletal system. This paper reports upon field research analysis of the hand-arm vibration (HAV) exposure levels of utility workers in the UK construction sector when operating hand held vibrating power tools. Methodology: An empirical epistemological lens was adopted to analyse primary quantitative data on the management of hand held tool trigger times (seconds) collected from field studies. To augment the analysis further, an interpretivist perspective was undertaken to qualitatively analyse interviews held with the participating company’s senior management team post field study results. This approach sought to provide further depth and perspective on the emergent numerical findings. Findings: The findings reveal that none of the operatives were exposed above the exposure limit value (ELV) and that 91.07% resided under the exposure action value (EAV). However the Burr four parameter model probability model (which satisfied the Anderson-Darling, Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Chi-squared goodness of fit tests at