Jalandhar-based girl bags international research award

Tribune News Service
Jalandhar, July 9

Vibha Bhatia, a resident of Maqsudan and a scholar from Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh, has brought laurels by winning an internationally acclaimed research award in a niche field ‘ergonomics’ (human factors).

After the nomination by the Indian Society of Ergonomics, the International Ergonomics Association has awarded Bhatia the 2020 IEA/Kingfar Award for student research in human factors and ergonomics issues.

She was also given honorary acknowledgement in the IEA CONGRESS 2021 held at Vancouver, Canada, from June 14-18, whose attendees were world leaders and pioneers of ergonomics and human factors.

Bhatia, who will soon complete her doctorate, said, “Ergonomics is a discipline that aims at fostering safe and healthy work environment for workers and applies almost in every occupation ranging from white collar jobs, including IT employees and dentists, to the rugged occupations like industrial labourers, vehicle drivers, and agricultural workers. Working in an unsafe and awkward postures for longer durations is the cause of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) in workers, like frequent and unbearable pain in body muscles/joints. Realising its importance, research and application of ergonomics is given immense importance in developed countries, whereas the field is catching its publicity at a much slower pace in India as well.”

At the Centre of Excellence- Industrial and Product Design Lab, PEC, Bhatia has been doing work in dental ergonomics. Dental professionals have to serve ever-rising population of patients under an unfitting environment, making them highly prone to develop the MSDs. She has been working to create a suitable solution to the current scenario. She’s also working on the registered project in collaboration with the PGIMER, Chandigarh, and Panjab University Dental College, Chandigarh. Overall, her dedicated efforts in the area of Human Factors and Ergonomics would not only assist the Indian dental community, but would assist in improvising occupational health and safety of workers belonging to different genres.

She said, “The early onset signs of the MSDs include redness, swelling, creptitus, reduced range of motion and loss of strength; symptoms which can be felt by an individual includes pain, discomfort, aching, numbness, tingling, burning, stiffness and fatigue. The symptoms usually disrupt the daily routine of the worker at the workplace as well as home. MSDs diagnoses methods includes laboratory tests (erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), imaging tests (X-rays, bone scanning, computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), Dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA), Ultrasonography). Adopting proactive administrative techniques at the organisational level like work practice controls, job rotations and counteractive stretch breaks becomes crucial. Adopting a physically active lifestyle and yoga stretching in your routine may prove to be simple and effective for early prevention of MSDs.”

She thanked her supervisors, centre coordinator, ISE board members and her parents, for their constant support.