Fits Like a Glove: Protecting the Hands of Construction Workers

For glove industry researchers, the ongoing challenge remains: How can we better provide “second skin” comfort while ensuring task-specific hand protection? This question is central to the development of new glove models for multi-tasking members of the construction industry.

Today’s gloves are designed to protect workers from a variety of threats: lacerations from the rough and sharp edges of building materials such as glass, brick and roofing; the potential poisonous effects of hexavalent chromium in Portland cement; chemical burns; and the threat of injury from the many materials and tools handled in the course of a day’s work.

The hand is the leading body part injured at work and treated in hospital emergency departments, with hand injuries sending more than 1 million workers to the emergency room annually in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. When cuts and lacerations of the fingers and hands are combined, the number of days-away-from work cases (approximately 110,000 annually), are second only to back strains and sprains, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Avoiding the impairment and suffering of injury to workers is the primary concern when addressing the issue of hand protection. At the same time, the cost of hand injuries in dollars, according to statistics from the National Safety Council, is eye opening:

➤ Direct cost of a laceration: $10,000

➤ Stitches: $2,000 plus indirect costs, such as time away from work

➤ Butterfly: $300

➤ Severed tendon >$70,000

The causes of hand injuries on construction sites are many. However, the No. 1 factor is performing tasks without the protection of gloves. Other factors, such as performing an unfamiliar task, lack of training, distractions and fatigue come into play as well.

With all the information about hand injuries, one fact remains: Wearing gloves is the most effective way of reducing most hand injuries. This simple solution has been proven to reduce the relative risk of injury by 60 percent.

Reasons for not wearing gloves range from not having the appropriate glove for the job or not having a properly sized glove to workers’ fear of not being able to perform the task with gloves on. These obstacles to workers wearing gloves are being addressed by glove research teams globally. Most of these obstacles already have been overcome by the diverse variety of glove sizes and models available today.

Today’s Hand Protection Frontier

There’s always room for improvement in hand protection, but recently, new fiber technology has been developed that provides cut resistance with dexterity.

This new fiber joins dozens of other high-performance fibers in a glove environment that increasingly is becoming task-specific. The combination of new fibers with an almost unlimited variety of synthetic coating configurations provides an environment in which hand protection for the construction industry is evolving more rapidly than ever before.