REVIEW ARTICLE e-ISSN: 2349-0659 p-ISSN; 2350-0964 Work Profle and Hazards Review Study of Workers in Small Scale Enterprises Ekta Melkani, Kiran Singh*, Naaz Bano, Manju Mehta A BSTRACT The review study highlight the rigorous work profle of the workers in small scale industries and depict how the hazards caused to them in their daily life are afecting their health. Diferent hazards such as very severe pain in neck, head, shoulders, fngers, hands, and lower back were identifed, always leading to various musculoskeletal disorders. A need to improve workstation and workplace environment to make it user friendly to workers is felt so the workers could be comfortable is highlighted in all the studies. The study has its focus majorly on the craft industries and presents the plight of the jewelers specially. Proper task analysis and work rest pattern are identifed as useful to alleviate the mental fatigue and to improve work efciency of the workers. Keywords: Ergonomics, Hazard analysis, Innovation, Work profle, Workplace Asian Pac. J. Health Sci., (2021); DOI: 10.21276/apjhs.2021.8.1.19 ©2021 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http:// creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. I NTRODUCTION Artisans have been recognized as the backbone of India’s economy from non-farm rural sector. They are accounted to be 7 million ofcially and 200 million unofcially. The unique work along with itself brings unique kind of problems. The prolonged and unnatural postures of craftsmen while making diferent masterpieces force them to not even get a comfortable sleep at night. The World Health Organization [1] in 2000 described musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) as one of the leading causes of occupational injury and disability in both developed and developing countries. Glover et al. [2] described MSDs as the most notorious and common causes of severe long-term pain and physical disability afecting hundreds of millions of people across the world. They have also been recognized as leading causes of signifcant human sufering, loss of productivity, and economic burdens over society. [2] The prevalence and risk factors of MSDs among craftsmen such as weavers and handicrafts workers can be identifed using the assessment tools such as a Nordic body map, rapid upper limb assessment (RULA), rapid entire body assessment, ventricular assist device and overall discomfort scores, lifting Index, snook tables, and other anthropometric tools used to plot the MSD severity, work posture, and anthropometric dimensions of the craftsmen. [3] Tiwari and Gite [4] have studied the efect of work rest schedule on posture and physiological parameters. An experiment was conducted with fve subjects to study the infuence of four work-rest schedules on physical workload. It was indicated that the work-rest schedules did infuence the physiological and postural workload because of the diferences in working heart rate and postural discomfort. Hence, it had been concluded that minimum rest pauses of 15 min avoid excessive postural discomfort along with 45 min of the lunch break duration. [4] Keeping in mind the above facts, a review study has been carried out by representing various studies by other global authors, who have ever tried to bring in light the adversities of various artisans in ergonomic terms. R EVIEW L ITERATURE Yamada et al. [5] administered 338 workers in clean rooms producing electronic parts in 12-h shifts to general health questionnaire and Department of Family Resource Management, IC College of Home Sciences, CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar, Haryana, India Corresponding Author: Dr. Kiran Singh, Professor, Department of Family Resource Management, IC College of Home Sciences, CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar, Haryana, India. E-mail: kiransingh.in@gmail.com How to cite this article: Melkani E, Singh K, Bano N, Mehta M. Work Profle and Hazards Review Study of Workers in Small Scale Enterprises. Asian Pac. J. Health Sci., 2021;8(1):90-93. Source of support: Nil Conficts of interest: None. Received: 20/10/2020 Revised: 29/12/2020 Accepted: 16/01/2021 physical ftness tests compared to the 95 workers in 8-h shifts in management, clerical, and engineering workers. The 12-h shift workers complained of poor health, dissatisfaction with life, and poor recuperation from fatigue more than the 8-h shift workers an even highest in the daytime workers whereas, 12-h shift workers showed signifcantly lower ftness levels, and larger alcohol and cigarette consumption than the 8-h shift workers. Health promotion services at the workplace to long-hour shift workers needed devised ways to improve working conditions and environments for reducing fatigue at work. Alexopoulos et al. [6] (2003) revealed that the socioeconomic status of the workers might be responsible for diferent MSDs and also, signifcantly positive association of low education was showed with MSDs. Sukhpal [7] (2005) zoomed in livelihoods and potential importance of rural non-farm enterprises and products which remained neglected for a long time and tried to understand the dynamics and issues of this sector for the emerging opportunities in terms of new markets for rural non-farm products. Keeping focus on Gujarat, the nature and dynamics of production and market for wooden handicraft products in particular were examined for the concept and domain of rural non-farm sector in general. Problems were identifed and strategies for better organization for products’ manufacturing and marketing were suggested based on empirical evidence as it was reasoned the major problem in this sector,