Nastja Podrekar, assistant researcher in the InnoRenew CoE’s Human Health in the Built Environment research group, attended the Swiss Public Health Conference 2019: “Child and Adolescents Public Health”, which was held 28-29 August 2019 in Winterthur, Switzerland.

At the conference, experts from Switzerland and across Europe discussed their research and solutions for improving access to healthy interventions and preventative health care for children and adolescents.

Nastja took part in the poster session, where she emphasized the importance of ergonomics in schools. The focus of her poster was the mismatch between unsuitable school furniture and students’ anthropometric measurements.

“This topic is important because non-ergonomically designed furniture may increase discomfort, musculoskeletal symptoms and pain among students,” says Nastja.

Her research indicates a high student-furniture mismatch; more than one third of the pupils she measured were mismatched to seat width (41%), seat height (32%) and desk height (30%).

The high mismatch between furniture and students’ anthropometry indicates that there is a need to ergonomically redesign school furniture in Slovenian schools.

Nastja Podrekar presented her poster: Furniture-Student Mismatch. Image: InnoRenew CoE