Arbeitsmedizin und Gesundheitsangelegenheiten

Abstrakt

Deriving Cost-Efficient Strategies for Observational Assessments of Postural Loads

Mahmoud Rezagholi

Studies aimed at optimizing resource allocation between different sampling stages are characterized by both simplicity and incompleteness in optimization and economic analysis. The aim of this study was therefore to completely resolve the allocation problem for a four-stage strategy devoted to observational assessment of workrelated postural loads with the precision of the mean estimate considered as ‘output’. The derived demand functions for inputs to the four stages were used to derive functions for the minimized cost and the maximized precision of the assessment strategy. The application of the theoretical results to a working posture assessment study led to increased cost efficiency of the assessment strategy investigated in the study. Under the additional constraint that the optimal values must be integers, optimization of this strategy would result in either a 12% reduction in cost or a 7% increase in precision.