Shamsul Bahri Md Tamrin

Shamsul Bahri Md Tamrin
Universiti Putra Malaysia | UPM · Department of Environmental and Occupational Health

DVM; M Med. (Public Health), PhD

About

179
Publications
268,388
Reads
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2,897
Citations
Additional affiliations
November 1997 - present
Universiti Putra Malaysia
Position
  • Lecturer
November 1997 - present
UPM
Position
  • Professor (Associate)

Publications

Publications (179)
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Abstract. The respiratory health of Malaysian Traffic Police has been compromised by working in heavy traffic and congested junctions with bad air for long hours. A wireless outdoor individual exposure device is vital to track their exposure, however, the efficacy of the system remains uncertain. While existing techniques exist to examine the effic...
Article
Full-text available
Workplaces in tropical countries are associated with increasing temperature and humidity, thus, the workers are susceptible to heat hazards. The inability for self-cooling properly toward exposure to head hazards can lead to severe dehydration and even death. To date, there are several indices and models to assess heat stress, such as WBGT, ISO 793...
Article
Full-text available
Fatigue is an inevitable problem in the workplace due to many factors. Transportation workers are susceptible to falling asleep at the wheel, feeling tired and drowsiness, prolonged mental and physical exertion, sleep deprivation, which will later result in fatigue. The objective of this paper is to provide a comprehensive review of driver fatigue,...
Chapter
This article discusses and elaborates the experiences in coordinating the curriculum for education HFE among Asian countries including Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, Indonesia, India, Thailand, and the Philippines.
Article
This paper provides a specific deliberation on occupational hazards confronted daily by Malaysian Traffic Police. Traffic police is a high-risk occupation that involves a wide range of tasks and, indirectly, faced with an equally wide variety of hazards at work namely, physical, biological, psychosocial, chemical, and ergonomic hazards. Thereupon,...
Chapter
Background: The Malaysia’s population is growing each year and therefore, it is expected that the aging community may keep on serving their service even after the pension, and this was influenced by their previous work environment. One of the alternative occupations that could engage by the elderly individuals is taxi drivers. This paper aimed to e...
Article
Full-text available
Introduction: Prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) among office workers found to be high worldwide, leading to considerable economic impacts and health issues. The relationship between MSDs and productivity loss is widely recognized. This study investigates the possible relationships between the self-reported musculoskeletal disorders and...
Article
Full-text available
Cement mineral dust contains a variety of carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic substances. The study aimed to determine the probability of health risk among cement workers due to respirable silica (Si), arsenic (As), and chromium (Cr) VI dust exposure. A cross-sectional study was carried out among 123 cement workers. A personal air sampling pump was u...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Discomfort due to riding a motorcycle is an issue that need to be addressed as it has long-term effects of musculoskeletal disorders on motorcyclists especially among occupational motorcyclist. Thus, this study was conducted to analyse the rating of muscle discomfort and correlation with the risk factors among traffic police riders. A crosssectiona...
Article
Full-text available
Background: Apart from being exposed to various hazards, there are several other factors that contribute to the deterioration of traffic police health. Objectives: A cross-sectional study was carried out to explore the association of occupational, socio-demographic, and lifestyle factors with lung functions in traffic policemen in Kuala Lumpur (...
Article
Background: Malaysian traffic policemen are constantly exposed to unhealthy air in the outdoor environment, which results in various health problems. This study investigates the relationship of the personal exposure level to PM2.5 and lung functions in traffic policemen in Kuala Lumpur and Johor Bahru. Methods: A pulmonary function test using a...
Article
Full-text available
Previous studies have reported on the increment in the concentration levels of outdoor air pollution affecting the lung functions among traffic police as they work outdoors, on an average, for 12 hours daily. This paper provides an analysis of the outdoor air pollutant trends. It is novel in considering how it can be used to understand the impact o...
Article
Full-text available
Traditionally, neoclassical economics in most of the developing countries are highly dependent on both the private and public sectors for the purposes of policy-making. In order to close the gaps that exist in the current OSH policy system, both employers and employees in any business organization are urged to demonstrate full commitment on OSH pro...
Article
Introduction: Malaysian traffic police are always working on the public roads to alleviate traffic congestion and therefore exposed them to the polluted air every day. In particular, polluted air containing PM2.5 is dangerous to their respiratory health as they can penetrate deep into the lungs, leading to bronchitis, lung cancer and many more. Hen...
Article
Full-text available
The key objective of this work was to observe the effect of chemical treatments on the oil palm empty fruit bunch (OPEFB) fibres. The OPEFB fibres were treated with sodium hydroxide (NaOH) by 3% of concentration and 7 hours of soaking time. The treated OPEFB fibres were subjected to Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and X-Ray Diffracti...
Article
Discomfort measurement has usually been attempted by asking the participants to rate the scale of their discomfort which commonly termed as a subjective scale. Various studies had conducted the discomfort level on vehicle seat by using Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) and Likert scale. VAS is a tool that use to measure a discomfort or characteristics in...
Article
Full-text available
Electromyography (EMG) is one of the special tool in assessing human muscle performance. The muscle performance can be evaluated when there exist changes on both the amplitude and frequency simultaneously. However, various time-frequency EMG signal features from literature do not provide easy and direct interpretation of the muscle condition specif...
Article
The effects of poor air quality are a serious issue in urban areas, wherever most people live and work. Precise monitoring of air quality in real-time is crucial to enable prompt and fitting resolutions for outdoor workers and the public. This study is meant to provide information and to understand current knowledge on the use of mobile wireless se...
Article
Full-text available
Objective: The objective of this study was to determine the proportion of motorcycle safety helmets (MSHs) used by postal delivery riders (PDRs) that comply with the Standards and Industrial Research Institute of Malaysia’s (SIRIM) MSH standard guidelines and identify factors that contribute toward compliance of used MSHs with the standards. Method...
Article
Introduction The occupational safety and health issues for police riders and other professional riders are often related to ergonomic hazards and risks. The purpose of this research was to identify the factors that contribute to the health effects in developing work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) among male traffic policemen using high-p...
Chapter
Full-text available
An effective ergonomics product design for safety helmet among oil palm harvesters requires both physical and non-physical aspects of ergonomics criteria. This project aims to develop a novel safety helmet design for oil palm harvesters’ using ergonomics principles, creative design and occupational safety and health combining with waste by product...
Article
Full-text available
It is not unlikely in Cameroon to be involved in road accidents. The debate as to who is responsible has been a bone of contention among travellers for years. Some have put the blame on the government for inadequate laws and road unworthiness. Others blamed the drivers for being 'cash crazy' and reckless while others have blamed the companies for h...
Conference Paper
This paper proposes a technique to automatically categorize work levels categories to improve the conventional functional capacity evaluation’s core lifting task. Surface EMG signals were collected from biceps brachii and erector spinae muscles. Spectrogram was used as a pre-processing approach for auto-segmentation of the EMG signal and for the fe...
Article
Full-text available
This study aims to identify the determinants of certified helmet use among postal delivery riders (PDRs) in rural areas of Peninsular Malaysia. A cross-sectional study was done among 269 PDRs from 50 postal distribution centres (DC) nationwide. Data collection was achieved through observation of the helmets and a questionnaire. The quality of the m...
Article
Full-text available
The key objective of this work was to study the effect of multiple surface treatments on the oil palm empty fruit bunch (OPEFB) fibres. To achieve this purpose, the OPEFB fibres were treated with the sodium hydroxide (NaOH) (3%), silane (2%), a combination of NaOH (3%) and silane (2%) (NaOH+silane), and NaOH (3%) prior silane (2%) (NaOH-silane). Th...
Article
Full-text available
The main goal of this work is to study the effect of different concentration level of alkaline solution for oil palm empty fruit bunch (OPEFB) fibre structure. As to achieve this objective, the OPEFB fibres were treated with 2 hours of soaking time with 3%, 5%, 7%, and 10% of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) concentration portion. The single test for treate...
Article
Full-text available
Background: The Rapid Office Strain Assessment (ROSA) is a tool employed online to screen office workstations which may require modification to decrease musculoskeletal discomfort of workers. The aim of this research was to examine if the ROSA is able to evaluate the pain severity in the lower back, shoulder and neck of office workers accurately. M...
Article
Glove production involves work processes with a high temperature. However, few studies have been conducted on the hazards of high temperature among workers. This study was conducted to evaluate the prevalence of heat‐related illness among glove industry workers under heat stress conditions. This cross‐sectional study was conducted in a glove factor...
Article
Full-text available
There are numerous factors to take into account to ensure the elderly taxi drivers perform well at work while maintaining a good health. This paper is aimed to assess sitting posture of elderly taxi drivers in Peninsular Malaysia using chisquare test. A cross-sectional study was conducted with elderly taxi drivers using a self-administered question...
Article
Full-text available
Electromyography EMG is a standout amongst the most regularly utilized tools to study human muscle condition. But due to the intricate attributes of the EMG itself, time-frequency distributions such as Gabor transform and spectrogram are more preferred than the simpler time distribution and frequency distribution. These techniques have been broadly...
Article
Full-text available
Background: Quality of Work Life (QWL) is a subset of the quality of life which expresses the interactions between workers and their total working environment with individual or human dimension. Objectives: The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence of QWL among Malaysian workers. Methods: 2740 respondents (1921 males and 819 femal...
Article
Full-text available
Background: Malaysian office workers often experience Musculoskeletal Discomfort (MSD) which is typically related to the low back, shoulders, and neck. Objectives: The objective of this study was to examine the occurrence of lower back, shoulder, and neck pain among Malaysian office workers. Methods: 752 subjects (478 women and 274 men) were random...
Article
Full-text available
Background: Occupational Safety and Health Master Plan for Malaysia 2015 was intended to increase awareness, knowledge and commitment to Occupational Safety and Health in all undertaking to reduce the number of injuries, diseases and fatalities. Objectives: The purpose of this study is to determine the effectiveness of Occupational Safety Health Ma...
Article
Full-text available
Electromyography (EMG) is one of the most commonly used tools to study human muscle condition. Past researchers have introduced various techniques from time distribution (TD), frequency distribution (FD) and time-frequency distribution (TFD) to extract information from this EMG signal. However, due to the complex characteristics of the EMG signal i...
Article
Background: Hard hats are among the personal protective equipment (PPE) used in many industries to reduce the impact of any falling object on the skull and also to prevent head and brain injuries. However, the practice of wearing a safety helmet during working hours is still low. This is due to the physical discomfort perceived by safety helmet us...
Article
Background: People who work with the steam boilers in palm oil mills are vulnerable to accidents, notably to explosions, whenever failures of any kind occur during their operation. Objective: This cross-sectional study was conducted in palm oil mills to determine the knowledge, attitude, and perception (KAP) concerning the risk management of ste...
Article
Full-text available
Malaysian construction sector is regarded as critical in the field of health because of the high rates of accidents and fatalities. This research aimed to determine the prevalence, sources and severity of injuries and its association with commitment to safety among foreign construction workers. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 323 foreig...
Article
BACKGROUND: There exists many potential training exercises for office workers in an attempt to prevent musculoskeletal disorders. However, to date a suitable tool to monitor the perceived exertion of those exercises does not exist. OBJECTIVE: The primary objective of this study was to examine the validity and reliability of the Borg CR-10 scale to...
Article
Background: Malaysian office workers often experience Musculoskeletal Discomfort (MSD) which is typically related to the low back, shoulders, and neck. Objectives: The objective of this study was to examine the occurrence of lower back, shoulder, and neck pain among Malaysian office workers. Methods: 752 subjects (478 women and 274 men) were r...
Article
Full-text available
The primary objective of this work was to study the effect of different soaking time in an alkaline solution for oil palm empty fruit bunch (OPEFB) fibre. For this purpose, the OPEFB fibres were treated with the sodium hydroxide (NaOH) at 5% concentration for ½ hour, 1-hour, 3-hour, 5-hour, 7-hour and 24-hours. The single tests of treated and untre...
Article
Background: The traffic police force is one of the occupations that utilize motorcycles as the main mode of transport. The main ergonomic hazard with the constant use of motorcycles is exposure of riders to vibration while riding their motorcycles, which can potentially lead to work‑related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs). Objective: This review...
Article
Full-text available
Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of exercise, ergonomic modification, and a combination of training exercise and ergonomic modification on the scores of pain in office workers with neck, shoulders, and lower back pain. Methods: Participants (N=142) in this randomized controlled trial were office workers aged 20-50 years old with neck, sh...
Article
Full-text available
The seatbelt remains one of the most effective solutions in reducing vehicle occupants' injuries in road crashes. Nevertheless, achieving a high compliance rate in Malaysia, where the situation of not buckling up is glaringly evident among rear passengers, still poses a great challenge. On another note, despite manufacturers' countermeasure to intr...
Article
Malaysian construction sector is one of the critical sectors represented by high accident and fatality rates over time. Accident rate in the construction sector is the third highest in Malaysia and the highest for fatality cases. Construction’s workers came in contact with dangerous equipment and substances which can easily affect their physical an...
Article
Full-text available
There are a lot of concerns directed towards safety and health in the agricultural sectors including Malaysia which covers 23% of total land area (approximately 34 million hectares). Under the jurisdiction of Ministry of Agriculture and Agro-based Industry (MOA), agriculture sector in Malaysia are further defined in 3 major agricultural activities;...
Article
Full-text available
Construction sector is one of the largest sectors in many parts of the world due to the various types of activities taking place onsite as well as the nature of construction work. This particular sector is also regarded as the most dangerous and hazardous workplace. Workers are constantly in contact with dangerous equipment and substances which oft...
Article
Background: The traffic police force is one of the occupations that utilize motorcycles as the main mode of transport. The main ergonomic hazard with the constant use of motorcycles is exposure of riders to vibration while riding their motorcycles, which can potentially lead to work.related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs). Objective: This review...
Article
Background: Previous research support the claim that people who work in offices and sit for a long time are particularly prone to musculoskeletal disorders. Objective: The main objective of this paper is to introduce an exercise training program designed to decrease muscle stiffness and pain that can be performed in the office setting. Methods:...
Article
Full-text available
Manual lifting is one of the common practices used in the industries to transport or move objects to a desired place. Nowadays, even though mechanized equipment is widely available, manual lifting is still considered as an essential way to perform material handling task. Improper lifting strategies may contribute to musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs)...
Article
Full-text available
Lower back, neck and shoulder pain are the most prevalent musculoskeletal problems affecting office workers worldwide. Several hypotheses regarding the underlying mechanisms and the maintenance behind office work-related musculoskeletal disorders have been presented. There is some evidence, based on epidemiological studies as well as studies upon s...
Article
Full-text available
The oil palm empty fruit bunch (OPEFB) natural fibres were comprehensively reviewed to assess their potential as reinforcing materials in polymer composites for energy absorption during low-velocity impact. The typical oil palm wastes include trunks, fronds, kernel shells, and empty fruit bunches. This has a tendency to burden the industry players...
Article
Full-text available
Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) caused by muscle fatigue have been a major problem for industry which needs to be resolved to save costs related to human resource development (extra training and compensation). Detailed fatigue monitoring researches aimed at finding the best fatigue indices is not new although studies on the causes of fatigue can b...
Article
Full-text available
Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) are a prevalent issue affecting office workers worldwide and resulting in economic losses and health problems. Pursuing of suitable ergonomic interventions approaches became an inescapable need in order of overcoming the future forecast that expects increased proportion of office-based worker as result of rapid grow...
Book
Full-text available
The book focuses on issues related to Economics, Social, Safety and Health in the Palm Oil Milling Industry in Malaysia. This book helps to understand the involvement of economic, social and environmental impacts of the new technology developed for the Malaysia palm oil milling industry. The environmental impacts of new milling technology studied i...
Article
Full-text available
Occupational Safety and Health is somewhat existing and on the rise issue in Cameroon. Like most developing countries, little or nothing is being done to stop the ever-increasing rate of accidents and injuries occurred at work. In the transport sector, the rate of occupational accidents and injuries in Cameroon is nothing to ride home about. Every...
Article
Motorcycle is one of the more popular modes of transport for Malaysian people due to its low price and easy usability. This paper reviews the current safety initiatives undertaken to address the need to enhance children's safety whilst riding as pillion on motorcycles and suggest possible remedial action to counter the possible lack of awareness fo...
Article
Without any protection from traffic-related air pollution, traffic policeman are exposed to air pollution on a daily basis as their duties are to manage traffic congestion. This review is carried out to explore the impact of occupational health hazards on the health of traffic police in Malaysia. Published research papers on respiratory health prob...
Article
Full-text available
Background: Steel manufacturing produces dust, fumes, and pollutant gases that may give adverse health effects to the respiratory function of workers. Improper occupational hygiene practice in the workplace will affect both workers wellbeing and productivity. Objective: To assess the level of particulate matter [(PM2.5, PM10, and Total Particula...
Chapter
The palm oil industry is the fourth largest contributor to the Malaysian Gross National Income (GNI) but the importance of this industry to the nation's economy does not preclude them from the risk of being affected by the occurrence of musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) among the workers in palm oil mills. Previous studies carried out have not proper...
Article
Full-text available
Purpose: Elderly taxi drivers among the whole taxi drivers are rapidly growth in Malaysia. The older taxi community may continue to serve their service even after retirement age of sixty years old. Therefore, older taxi drivers need to take specific consideration during driving activities according to ability and capability to sustain their life an...
Article
Full-text available
OBJECTIVE: This study aims to evaluate the usability of new Kansei navigation system interface features versus. existing interface design features in automotive navigation system. The Study population consist of participants which are chosen using purposive sampling technique consist of male professional drivers (PD) and non-professional drivers (N...
Article
Full-text available
The objectives of this study are to determine the prevalence of carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) among the frontline counter workers and the associated risks. A cross sectional study was conducted among 100 frontline counter staffs whose working at the telecommunication company in Klang Valley area. A stratified random sampling was used to select the r...
Conference Paper
The oil palm empty fruit bunch (OPEFB) natural fibres were comprehensively reviewed to assess their potential as reinforcing materials in polymer composites for energy absorption during low-velocity impact. The typical oil palm wastes include trunks, fronds, kernel shells, and empty fruit bunches. This has a tendency to burden the industry players...
Article
Full-text available
Motorcycles are a common mode of transport in Malaysia where families with children can be common seen riding together. However a child riding pillion on underbone motorcycles are not safely protected from falling down from the motorcycle apart from holding onto the adult in front. The current feature in an underbone motorcycle seat does not provid...
Article
Full-text available
Background: Metallic dust is a heterogeneous substance with respiratory sensitizing properties. Its long term exposure adversely affected lung function, thus may cause acute or chronic respiratory diseases. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in a steel factory in Terengganu, Malaysia to assess the metal dust exposure and its relation...
Article
Full-text available
Pain in specific areas of the body (including the lower back, neck, and shoulders) due to extended periods of sitting and inactivity is the most widespread musculoskeletal disorder worldwide and has consequences that are both socio-economic and personal. This condition is particularly prevalent in industrialised countries, affecting roughly 70% to...
Article
Background: The accuracy of instruments such as questionnaires and the goniometer are critical for measuring the severity of musculoskeletal disorders among office workers. Objective: To determine the reliability of the Cornell questionnaire, goniometer and Borg questionnaire, which are commonly used instruments to assess the severity of musculo...
Article
Full-text available
Balancing user requirements as well as usability requirements can be an exacting task for designers. Automotive navigation user interfaces are of no exception. The aim of this study was to integrate the concept of usability in the design process for automotive navigation user interfaces. A modified Kansei Engineering approach was used in order to d...
Article
Full-text available
It is believed that sport massage after intensive exercise might improve power and perceptual recovery in athletes. However, few studies have been done in this area. This study aimed to examine the effect of massage on the performance of bodybuilders. Thirty experienced male bodybuilders were randomly assigned to either a massage group (n = 15) or...
Article
Full-text available
There are a variety of body aches that fall under the umbrella term of Musculoskeletal Discomforts (MSDs). These can be distinguished based on the level of pain suffered by the patient, ranging from mild and sporadic to serious, constant and fatal. It has been suggested that a link exists between MSDs and risk factors involving one’s occupational c...