Nightshift zookeeper killed by snake

The body of a 29-year old student zoo keeper working an overnight shift along at the Caracas (Venezuela) zoo was found in the grip of a 10-foot python. An article in the local newspaper noted that the zoo keeper had broken zoo rules by entering the cage holding the snake. The National Shiftwork Information Center view is somewhat different -- fatigue in the overnight hours impairs judgment, vigilance, and reaction times. An inexperienced zoo keeper, working alone, at night, in the reptile section was unfortunately in a place where impaired performance had a deadly outcome.

This is a tragic reminder of the consequences of night shift work. Rather than point fingers at the deceased employee, we believe it will be most beneficial for zoo and government officials to look at their shift work management practices to see if there is shiftworker lifestyle training, shift scheduling, or other changes that could be implemented to reduce a repeat of this incident.

Hours of service issues on the railroads: part IV, increasing risk?

[Our series on Dr. Martin Moore-Ede's testimony before Congress continues]

3. Has the risk improved or worsened since 1998?
When I last testified here in 1998, it was at a time when considerable progress had been made in developing awareness of fatigue as a key safety issue in the industry. We also had a steady rate of progress in key overall safety statistics such as the rate of FRA-reportable rail accidents per million train miles (excluding highway-rail crossing accidents which have a very different causation). The FRA reportable rate had progressively dropped each year from 4.25/million miles in 1993 to 3.54 in 1997.

Unfortunately, the trend has reversed since then. An examination of the published safety statistics of the Federal Railroad Administration shows the FRA reportable accident rate has steadily increased each year since 1998, and reached a level of 4.17/million miles in 2001. Obviously not all these accidents are caused by human error. Mechanical and environmental events, and hazards from trespassing & vandalism are also part of the mix.

However, when we isolate out railroad collisions caused by human error, we see a similar trend of increasing accidents. The accident rate per million miles of human error collisions progressively fell from 0.30 in 1994 to 0.18 in 1998. Since 1998 the trend has reversed, and it has again risen to 0.27 in 2000 and 0.24 in 2001.

The number of injuries and fatalities in human error-caused train collisions fell to an all time low of 30 in 1998, but rose back up to 136 in 2001. The cost of human error collision train accidents (equipment & track damage only – excluding third party liability, and environmental clean up) had progressively fallen to $12 million per year by 1997, but climbed back up to $37 million per year in 2001.

With numerous studies suggesting that over 50% of human error transportation accidents are fatigue-related, this increase in human error train collisions in recent years is a significant issue of concern, and indicates that addressing fatigue in rail operations must be high on the industry’s agenda.

The level of risk has also increased from another perspective. We are now in the post 9-11 era, where the potential loss of vigilance and situational awareness in fatigued railroad employees has also become a critical national security issue. Because they are responsible for the secure transportation of sometimes hazardous cargoes across our nation, the vigilance of railroad employees has now become doubly important.

We must ensure that the railroad personnel transporting freight or passengers are not impaired in their capacity for continuous vigilance because of excessive fatigue.

Source: http://www.house.gov/transportation/rail/06-06-02/mooreede.html

Related Posts:
* Hours of service issues on the railroads: part I
* Hours of service issues on the railroads: part II, sleep deprivation and alertness
* Hours of service issues on the railroads: part III, safety threat?
* Hours of service issues on the railroads: part V, hours of service rules
* Hours of service issues on the railroads: part VI, train control technology
* Hours of service issues on the railroads: part VII, alertness monitoring technology
* Hours of service issues on the railroads: part VIII, risk-informed fatigue management
* Hours of service issues on the railroads: part IX, parallel models
* Hours of service issues on the railroads: part X, how to proceed

Hours of service issues on the railroads: part III, safety threat?

[Our series on Dr. Martin Moore-Ede's testimony before Congress continues]

2. Does this loss of vigilance pose a safety threat?
Anticipation, judgment, attention and cognition are all impaired by fatigue. A trained and experienced railroad engineer lapses back to the performance level of a novice when overwhelmed by fatigue, and will fail to anticipate the gradients of a track or the aspect of a signal.

Furthermore, anybody who has ridden through the night or the early-hours of the morning in the cab of a train, as I have, will attest to the battle one must sometimes fight against the waves of sleepiness that impede the safe performance of the often monotonous task of operating a train. These microsleeps in fatigued operators are found in every mode of transportation. In fact my career has given me the opportunity to find myself inadvertently nodding off alongside the operators of every mode of transportation!

We and others have conducted extensive scientific documentation of this phenomenon by wiring up train engineers and conductors with EEG recording devices that measure sleep brain waves. In a study of 500 engineer trips, we found that the average railroad engineer has 4 seconds per hour of operating the train where his eyes are shut in a microsleep (a brief lapse into sleep in the midst of wakeful activity). Among the most sleep deprived engineers, this can reach as high as 100 seconds per hour. It only takes a few seconds of microsleep to miss a stop signal, and indeed examples of this have been captured on tape.

Train collisions where the crew run a train through not only the warning signals but the stop signal and collide with another train, are most commonly the result of such microsleeps. A tell tale sign is that the rate of these accidents peak during the nocturnal and into the morning hours (1AM - 9 AM) at the end of an overnight shift, just the time when we know that human alertness most often fails. The recent (April 23, 2002 ) collision in Riverside, California between a Metrolink passenger train and a BNSF freight train that passed through a red signal at 8:18AM, killing 2 and injuring 265 commuters is just one of the many examples where it would be appropriate to explore the occurrence of a fatigue-induced microsleep event as a potential explanation.

Source: http://www.house.gov/transportation/rail/06-06-02/mooreede.html

Related Posts:
* Hours of service issues on the railroads: part I
* Hours of service issues on the railroads: part II, sleep deprivation and alertness
* Hours of service issues on the railroads: part IV, increasing risk?
* Hours of service issues on the railroads: part V, hours of service rules
* Hours of service issues on the railroads: part VI, train control technology
* Hours of service issues on the railroads: part VII, alertness monitoring technology
* Hours of service issues on the railroads: part VIII, risk-informed fatigue management
* Hours of service issues on the railroads: part IX, parallel models
* Hours of service issues on the railroads: part X, how to proceed

Shiftworker health and safety: short-term effects, part I

There are many positive aspects of shiftwork and our 24/7 society. Operating 24/7, shiftworkers make this world safer, more productive, and more convenient for everyone else. Employers often offer differential pay for shiftwork, and shiftworkers often have time off when the majority of workers are working.

Shiftwork schedules are also demanding and likely to produce stress and fatigue. Shiftwork can affect safety, health, or ability to do the job. Some of these things happen very soon after starting shiftwork. We talk about these under Immediate Effects. Health changes take a longer time to appear. We talk about health under Long-Term Health Effects.

Immediate Effects
Sleep
Soon after starting shiftwork, people notice changes in their sleep. Night workers usually get the least amount of sleep. Evening shift-workers get the most sleep, and day shiftworkers get a medium amount of sleep. Night workers are forced to sleep during the day, when their circadian rhythm makes them feel more awake. Day sleep is usually shorter than night sleep—sometimes two or three hours shorter. Day sleep also is lighter than night sleep.

Day sleepers often say they don't sleep as deeply as they do at night. Because their sleep is lighter, they are easily awakened by sounds. This makes sleeping difficult. Since there is more activity during the day, there are more sounds to wake up the sleeping shiftworker. Both permanent night workers and rotating shiftworkers sleep worse when working nights. However, rotating shiftworkers sleep the least of all.

Sleep loss makes it much easier to fall asleep at inappropriate times. This affects a worker's ability to perform safely and efficiently. Sleepiness can affect performance both on and off the job. Driving to and from work is a major concern. Sleepiness affects our ability to concentrate or pay attention, and driving requires us to pay attention at all times.

So, if a person is sleepy, it is easier to have an accident. Several jobs, such as operating dangerous machinery, also require us to pay attention at all times. So sleepiness can be risky in many different occupations. This risk is not simply a matter of falling completely asleep. After sleep loss, it is possible to have very brief periods of sleep that last only a few seconds.

Most people may not even realize these short sleeps are happening. During those few seconds of sleep, they are not paying attention at all. If something dangerous happens at those times, the worker or somebody else could get seriously hurt.

Circadian Rhythm, Performance, and Safety
The circadian rhythm is a major body rhythm with regular ups and downs in the 24-hour day. Many systems in the body are very active at certain times of day, and not active at all at other times of day. Usually the most activity happens in late afternoon or early evening. For example, the body's ability to produce energy from food (metabolism) is highest in the afternoon to evening. The least activity usually happens in the middle of the night when most people are asleep. This is one reason people feel most active and alert around 4 to 6 o'clock in the afternoon, and sleepiest at 4 to 6 o'clock in the morning.

There also are personal differences in circadian rhythms. Some people are morning types or “larks.” Morning people feel most active and alert early in the day. They usually go to bed early in the evening. Other people are evening types or “owls.”

Evening people feel most active in late afternoon or evening, and like to stay up late into the night. Fishermen who are out on the water before dawn usually are morning types. Musicians who perform in the evening usually are evening types. Most people, however, are somewhere in-between the strict morning and evening types.

The internal circadian rhythm affects how alert people feel. This affects their ability to perform. People perform best when alertness and internal body activity is high, and worst when alertness and activity are low. In the normal day-work, night-sleep situation, people work when the circadian rhythm is high and sleep when it is low.

On average, this schedule is best for performance, which means it also is best for safety. When workers perform poorly, they are more likely to make errors that could lead to accidents or injuries.

When working the night shift, a person is at work when his or her circadian rhythm is low and asleep when it is high. Such a schedule means that a person is trying to stay alert when the circadian rhythm is low.

On average, this is not the best time of day for performance. This low-point affects physical activity and the ability to concentrate. If a worker also has lost sleep, fatigue could combine with the circadian low-point to double the effect on one's ability to perform. Poor performance could affect both productivity and safety. Studies of errors and accidents at different times of day show an increased risk at night when the circadian rhythm is low and sleep has been lost.

Source: Plain Language About Shiftwork (NIOSH)

Continued in:
* Shiftworker health and safety: short-term effects, part II

Interest in shiftworker fatigue and safety around the world

It's always interesting to me to see how far and wide interest in shiftwork issues is. North America has a pretty active interest in shiftworker safety and performance in 24/7 operations. So does the UK, and many parts of Europe. And, there's a great deal of interest and effort in Australia and New Zealand to raise awareness of shiftworker health and safety among managers in 24/7 businesses, and implement fatigue countermeasures.

Today I came across an article in the TamilStar.com from Sri Lanka. While the article is definitely not breaking any new editorial ground, it indicates an interest among Sri Lankans in shiftwork topics.

When Time magazine covered shiftwork

Tonight as I sat in my office working at the computer I came across an online article I hadn't seen in many years. Back in 1999, Time magazine ran a long piece on the challenges of shiftwork called In the Deep of the Night. (Yours truly is quoted on the third page of the article.)

The article discusses the alertness and safety challenges, the scheduling issues, and more.

And, while we're talking about some old articles, I'm reminded of an article that appeared in Inc. magazine which covered a man who proudly declared he was much more productive in a 24-hour period because he had trained himself to sleep less. That of course is bu**. You can click here to read the article, "Sleep is for Wusses" and my letter to the editor in reply about the dangers, and the costs, of inadequate sleep.

Ed

Best practices for managing a shiftwork operation

In our previuos post, we discussed shiftworker lifestyle training as an important step for employers of shiftworkers to implement. Beyond shiftworker lifestyle training, a wide range of factors affect alertness and performance, and therefore the health, and safety of shiftworkers. Some of the most prominent are:

• Hiring practices
• Length of shift
• Shift schedule
• Rotating or fixed
• Overtime
• Work environment
• Overnight food selection.

In future posts on the National Shiftwork Information Center blog we'll look at each of these areas. Let us know your tips and practices so we can include them here.

Further reading:
* Shiftwork schedules in the 24/7 world
* Why managers in 24/7 need to pay attention to the special needs of shiftworkers
* Shiftwork schedules: fixed or rotating
* Shiftwork schedule factors: work-rest ratios and predictability
* Shiftwork schedule factors: speed and direction of rotation
* Shiftwork schedules: time of shift
* Hiring shiftworkers: best practices for managers in 24/7 operations
* Adapting to night shifts -- helping shiftworkers adapt and avoid shiftworker maladaptation

Shiftworker lifestyle training: fatigue countermeasures, sleep strategies, and more

From time to time articles appear in the general press about the dangers of shiftwork. It's important to understand the risks, but it's equally important to focus on practical steps to improve the health, safety and work performance of shiftworkers in 24/7 operations. One relatively easy, and relatively inexpensive step 24/7 business operators can take is to provide their employees with shiftworker lifestyle training.

Shiftworkers' alertness, hence their ability to perform effectively, is dependent on many factors. Some of those factors are beyond their control, such as their work schedule, but others are directly affected by the individual's actions. Lifestyle training means giving workers the knowledge they need to make appropriate adjustments to their lives in order to ensure health and safety.

As the name suggests, successful lifestyle training affects a worker's entire life, not merely his or her time at work. Adjustments on the part of shiftworkers will therefore be contingent upon acceptance by spouses and family members who also will be affected. For this reason, we recommend including spouses in lifestyle training whenever possible.

Lifestyle training should start with a non-technical discussion of circadian rhythms and how they effect human alertness. Shiftworkers, whether nurses, police officers, pilots, factory workers, or whomever, must understand there is a fundamental difference between day shift work and night shift work. Humans have evolved over millions of years to be awake during the day and asleep at night. Unless shiftworkers acknowledge this basic fact, the rest of the training process is meaningless.

After this first step, lifestyle training should address the following areas and provide specific details on fatigue countermeasures:

Sleep
Seven or eight hours of uninterrupted sleep are important to everyone's health and well-being. Our bodies are not programmed to sleep during the day. As a result, daytime sleep typically reduces both the quantity and quality of sleep. Making sure the sleeping room is dark, quiet, well-ventilated, and not too warm is an important step. A high-quality mattress also improves sleep.

Nutrition
People who work the night shift need to know about general nutrition, but that alone is not enough. Our bodies simply were not designed to eat at night. Your stomach won't digest full meals, so you should eat in smaller portions. Spicy, rich, and fatty foods are particularly hard to handle at night. Careless eating habits can cause indigestion, discomfort, drowsiness, and weight gain.

Family and social life
All shiftworkers have to think about many things differently than 9-to-5 workers. This is particularly true if you are trying to maintain a family and social life. Celebrating holidays a week early, videotaping children's birthday parties, and breakfast dates are just some of the accommodations you can make to keep connected to the rest of your life. People who emphasize communication and plan effectively have shown that work and family can mix and that single people can have a social life.

Job performance and safety
You need to emphasize safety because accidents are more likely to occur at night than on other shifts. One study found the number of accidents is 23 percent higher on the night shift. With knowledge of the factors that affect alertness, you can avoid safety lapses, improve work performance, and prevent falling asleep at the wheel.

Lifestyle training improves job performance, as well as employees' health, safety, and quality of life. This has been most thoroughly documented in a report on CANALERT '95, an alertness assurance program funded by Canada's three largest railroads, which took before-and-after measurements of a broad range of criteria. [More about CANALERT '95 at the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers website or at Railway Age.]

The improved health and quality of life, in turn, improve morale and tend to lower absenteeism and turnover rates. Absenteeism and turnover are particularly problematic in round-the-clock operations because of the difficulty of getting substitute workers on short notice and training new workers in a continuous operation environment.

Shiftworkers: have you received some sort of lifestyle training? Was it helpful? Did it include your spouse?

24/7 Managers: does your company provide shiftworker lifestyle training? What are the costs and benefits?

Share your opinions and experiences. Post a comment now.

Shiftwork training to improve alertness and safety on the night shift

Safe operations depend on three factors: performance, attentiveness and alertness. Managers responsible for ensuring safety traditionally focus resources on performance. Most employers have elaborate hiring procedures for selecting people with the aptitude and experience to do the job. In many cases, these people have already spent time and money on their own education.

Managers are somewhat less focused on ensuring attentiveness. To varying degrees, managers monitor and control the factors that contribute to worker attentiveness--workload, motivation, and distractions. They have performance reviews and compensation plans. They provide productivity-enhancing tools and conduct workflow studies to simplify jobs and allow workers to focus.

But management attention has, for the most part, been nonexistent when it comes to alertness. And yet fatigue impairs judgment, which imperils the lives of employees, not to mention the financial health of the organization.

Most companies take employee alertness as a variable factor over which they have no control. This may have been true at one time, but it is not true today. There is now a sizable body of research that enables people to better understand, and so control, the elements of alertness.
Any system is only as strong as its weakest link. Everyone knows this to be true. And yet, companies may spend millions of dollars on training and spend nothing on how to live the life that accompanies the job.

If you think of humans as computers, the typical training we provide is like software. It helps people process data and provide an appropriate output. Unlike a computer, however, humans' ability to process data quickly and accurately is affected by their alertness. The missing element is training shiftworkers to enable them to maintain alertness at required levels.

This is not a radical new concept. In organizations across North America, health awareness and wellness programs are already in place. These programs are an effort to improve work performance and workers' quality of life by encouraging exercise, weight loss, better sleep habits, quitting smoking, etc. These wellness programs fall short, however, for the 20 percent of the workforce that works non-traditional hours. What makes sense for daytime workers may not make sense, or may be impractical, for night shift workers. The solution is alertness and safety training that is specifically created for night shift workers.

A blog for Shiftworkers and their Managers

In the spring of 1995, I co-founded Circadian Information with Dr. Martin Moore-Ede, a world-renowned expert on circadian alertness and fatigue. Our intent was to create a publishing business that would serve the growing number of businesses that operated 24/7, to help them improve the health, safety, and alertness of their employees. We also had some publications for individual shiftworkers, to help them and their family members successfully handle the demands of an atypical work schedule.

We published the Shiftworker Family Calendar (now the Working Nights Family Calendar), Shiftwork Alert (a monthly newsletter for managers in 24/7 operations), Working Nights (a monthly newsletter for shiftworkers and their family members), Alertness on Track (for railroad workers), and numerous booklets and management reports. We were fairly successful at that and these publications, now part of Circadian Technologies, Inc., continue to this day.

I have never lost my interest in the subject of alertness and performance for shiftworkers and others who work at night. I have also always been aware that the type of expert information we published at Circadian Information, is only one piece of the puzzle. That's why I founded the National Shiftwork Information Center.

Shiftworker-to-shiftworker help and advice is an important element. A lot of this stuff is not rocket science but it can take a little while to learn. I'm creating this blog -- the National Shifwork Information Center -- to provide a forum for shiftworkers to share information among themselves. We will talk about important topics like sleep, napping, diet, caffeine/stimulants, lifestyle, human physiology, human factors, work performance, safety, and whatever else you want to discuss. I'll also provide links to other online resources I find that you might find useful.

Although I've covered this topic for a long time I don't know all the answers. But, I know that somewhere out there, someone does. And, your feedback on my posts, your suggestions, your critiques of other web resources, will all help make this a more valuable resource for you and the millions of people who work at night. So let's hear from you.

Note about the term "Shiftworker"
For lack of a better word, I tend to use the word "shiftworker" to describe anyone whose schedule has them working more than half of the time outside of the 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. time frame. I realize that includes the factory and utility workers we tend to think of as shiftworkers, but it also includes healthcare professionals (doctors, nurses, technicians, etc.), transportation workers (pilots, flight attendants, ground crews, railroad engineers and conductors, truck drivers, merchant mariners, etc.), public safety (police, firefighters, military, secret service, etc.), and many others who need to be able to maintain alertness in the overnight hours to ensure effective and safe performance.

Please tell your friends and colleagues about this resource. It exists to help you, and them, improve health, safety, and quality of life. I hope that sounds pretty good. And it's free!

Ed Coburn
Executive Director and Blogger-in-Chief
National Shiftwork Information Center