There’s been a huge increase in the number of smart phone apps recently (1). In July 2015, Android users had 1.6 million apps to choose between, with users of Apple’s App Store close behind with 1.5 million. All very interesting, but what’s this got to do with noise and football? Here we go, here we go, here we go. A pilot study by NIOSH (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health) noise researchers in 2014 (2) aimed to assess the functionality and accuracy of smartphone sound measurement apps to determine whether they can be relied on to conduct participatory noise monitoring studies in the workplace. They found that certain noise…
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Health and Well-being Awareness
When you’re not singing anymore As a football supporter based in the West Midlands I have to get used to being depressed every Saturday when the results of my team’s best endeavours are announced on ‘Final Score’. But I am absolutely sure that the depression that descends at the final whistle is not really the depression covered in Element 5 of the NEBOSH Certificate Management of Health and Well-being at Work. My overall well-being is not significantly affected, I am able to keep the trivia of football in perspective and I do not think for a moment that I am suffering from a mental illness. Such illness, sometimes termed a…
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Qatar 2022
When FIFA announced that Qatar would host the 2022 World Cup there was surprise and concern from many quarters because of the country’s summer temperatures. And now it looks as though many organisations are backing a move from summer to winter for the tournament because of those concerns. Qatar certainly has an extreme climate. Jutting out into the Persian Gulf it is an arid peduncle covered largely in sand and gravel. Average temperatures for July are over 35oC. That’s the average day and night-time temperature across the entire month. At 5am, the coolest time of night, temperatures can still be above 30oC and relative humidity can be 100%. The maximum…
