Smart occupational health and safety for a digital era and its place in smart and sustainable cities

María-Isabel Sánchez-Segura; German-Lenin Dugarte-Peña; Antonio de Amescua; Fuensanta Medina-Domínguez; Eugenio López-Almansa; Eva Barrio Reyes; María-Isabel Sánchez-Segura; German-Lenin Dugarte-Peña; Antonio de Amescua; Fuensanta Medina-Domínguez; Eugenio López-Almansa; Eva Barrio Reyes

doi:10.3934/mbe.2021436

Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering

2021, Volume 18, Issue 6: 8831-8856. doi: 10.3934/mbe.2021436

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Research article Special Issues

Smart occupational health and safety for a digital era and its place in smart and sustainable cities

1.
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Universidad Carlos Ⅲ de Madrid, Av. De la Universidad 30, Leganés 28911, Spain
2.
Higher Polytechnic School, Universidad Francisco de Vitoria, Pozuelo de Alarcón, Madrid 28223, Spain
3.
Instituto Regional de Seguridad y Salud en el Trabajo, Comunidad de Madrid, Calle de Ventura Rodríguez 7, Madrid 28008, Spain
4.
D.G. de Agricultura, Ganadería y Alimentación, Consejería de Medio Ambiente y Ordenación del Territorio, Comunidad de Madrid, Calle de Alcalá 16, Madrid 28014, Spain

Received: 05 July 2021 Accepted: 22 September 2021 Published: 14 October 2021

As innovative technologies emerge, there is a need to evolve the environments in which these technologies are used. The trend has shifted from considering technology as a support service towards making it the means for transforming all complex systems. Smart cities focus their development on the use of technology to transform every aspect of society and embrace the complexity of these transformations towards something leading to the well-being and safety of people inhabiting these cities. Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) is an essential aspect to be considered in the design of a smart city and its digital ecosystems, however, it remains unconsidered in most smart city's frameworks, despite the need for a specific space for smart OHS. This paper summarizes a 9-month process of generation of a value proposition for evolving the sector of OHS based on a value-map in whose creation several stakeholders have participated. They focused on identifying the products, the methods, the organizational structures and the technologies required to develop an updated, dynamic and robust prevention model focused on workers in smart and complex contexts, and to improve the organizations' capability to guarantee safety even in the most changing, digital and disruptive settings. To assess the relevance and validity of this value-map, a study was carried out to match the set of its elements and its specific and conceptual products discovered, considering also the definition of the past needs and future trends of the sector that a set of renowned stakeholders and key opinion leaders (with mastery in OHS from several companies and industries) have recently defined for the decade of 2020. A prospective analysis of this match is presented, revealing that there is still an existing gap to be covered in the context of smart cities design: the explicit guarantee of safety for workers.
- digital transformation,
- safety at work in smart cities,
- organizational safety management,
- safety governance,
- occupational health and safety
Citation: María-Isabel Sánchez-Segura, German-Lenin Dugarte-Peña, Antonio de Amescua, Fuensanta Medina-Domínguez, Eugenio López-Almansa, Eva Barrio Reyes. Smart occupational health and safety for a digital era and its place in smart and sustainable cities[J]. Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering, 2021, 18(6): 8831-8856. doi: 10.3934/mbe.2021436

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Abstract

As innovative technologies emerge, there is a need to evolve the environments in which these technologies are used. The trend has shifted from considering technology as a support service towards making it the means for transforming all complex systems. Smart cities focus their development on the use of technology to transform every aspect of society and embrace the complexity of these transformations towards something leading to the well-being and safety of people inhabiting these cities. Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) is an essential aspect to be considered in the design of a smart city and its digital ecosystems, however, it remains unconsidered in most smart city's frameworks, despite the need for a specific space for smart OHS. This paper summarizes a 9-month process of generation of a value proposition for evolving the sector of OHS based on a value-map in whose creation several stakeholders have participated. They focused on identifying the products, the methods, the organizational structures and the technologies required to develop an updated, dynamic and robust prevention model focused on workers in smart and complex contexts, and to improve the organizations' capability to guarantee safety even in the most changing, digital and disruptive settings. To assess the relevance and validity of this value-map, a study was carried out to match the set of its elements and its specific and conceptual products discovered, considering also the definition of the past needs and future trends of the sector that a set of renowned stakeholders and key opinion leaders (with mastery in OHS from several companies and industries) have recently defined for the decade of 2020. A prospective analysis of this match is presented, revealing that there is still an existing gap to be covered in the context of smart cities design: the explicit guarantee of safety for workers.

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