A Body Tracking-Based Low-Cost Solution for Monitoring Workers' Hygiene Best Practices during Pandemics

• Published in: Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) Vol. 20; no. 21; p. 6149
• Main Authors: Manghisi, Vito M, Fiorentino, Michele, Boccaccio, Antonio, Gattullo, Michele, Cascella, Giuseppe L, Toschi, Nicola, Pietroiusti, Antonio, Uva, Antonio E
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 29-10-2020; MDPI
• Subjects: Algorithms; Attitudes; azure kinect; Best practice; Betacoronavirus - isolation & purification; body tracking; Contact potentials; Coronavirus Infections - diagnosis; Coronavirus Infections - prevention & control; Coronavirus Infections - virology; Coronaviruses; COVID-19; Disease control; Disinfection - economics; Disinfection - methods; Health Personnel; Humans; Hygiene; hygiene best practices; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted - economics; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted - instrumentation; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted - methods; Low cost; Monitoring; Occupational Health; occupational safety; Pandemics; Pandemics - prevention & control; pandemics containment; Personal Protective Equipment; Pneumonia, Viral - diagnosis; Pneumonia, Viral - prevention & control; Pneumonia, Viral - virology; Real time; safety training; SARS-CoV-2; Sensors; Severe acute respiratory syndrome; Wearable Electronic Devices; azure kinect; safety training; hygiene best practices; pandemics containment; body tracking; occupational safety
• ISSN: 1424-8220; 1424-8220
• DOI: 10.3390/s20216149

Since its beginning at the end of 2019, the pandemic spread of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (Sars-CoV-2) caused more than one million deaths in only nine months. The threat of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases exists as an imminent threat to human health. It is essential to implement adequate hygiene best practices to break the contagion chain and enhance society preparedness for such critical scenarios and understand the relevance of each disease transmission route. As the unconscious hand-face contact gesture constitutes a potential pathway of contagion, in this paper, the authors present a prototype system based on low-cost depth sensors able to monitor in real-time the attitude towards such a habit. The system records people's behavior to enhance their awareness by providing real-time warnings, providing for statistical reports for designing proper hygiene solutions, and better understanding the role of such route of contagion. A preliminary validation study measured an overall accuracy of 91%. A Cohen's Kappa equal to 0.876 supports rejecting the hypothesis that such accuracy is accidental. Low-cost body tracking technologies can effectively support monitoring compliance with hygiene best practices and training people in real-time. By collecting data and analyzing them with respect to people categories and contagion statistics, it could be possible to understand the importance of this contagion pathway and identify for which people category such a behavioral attitude constitutes a significant risk.