Investigating the effectiveness of a new indoor ventilation model in reducing the spread of disease: A case of sports centres amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The ventilation of buildings is crucial to ensure indoor health, especially when demanding physical activities are carried out indoors, and the pandemic has highlighted the need to develop new management methods to ensure adequate ventilation. In Spain, there are no specific ventilation regulations to prevent the spread of pathogens such as the coronavirus. Therefore, it is necessary to have a theoretical tool for calculating occupancy to maintain sports facilities in optimal safety conditions. The proposed theoretical method is based on the analysis of mathematical expressions from European standardisation documents and uses the concentration of CO2 as a bioeffluent. It is also based on the concept of background and critical concentration, which allows its application to be extrapolated to future crises caused by pathogens. This study presents a unique and novel dataset for sports centres. For this purpose, the calculation methods were applied to the data set provided by Mostoles City Council, Spain, during the pandemic years with the highest incidence of COVID-19, when the government introduced the assimilation of COVID-19 sick leave to occupational accidents. The data on this type of sick leave provided by the City Council correspond to the period between March 2020 and February 2022. Similarly, the data on the average use of sports facilities by activity, provided by the Sports Department, correspond to the years 2020 and 2021. In this way, it was possible to verify the effectiveness in preventing the spread of any type of coronavirus. In conclusion, the implementation of a theoretical occupancy calculation method based on the concentration of carbon dioxide as a bioeffluent can be an effective tool for the management of future crises caused by pathogens or hazardous chemicals in the air, and demonstrated its effectiveness in sports centres such as gyms, sports fields, and indoor swimming pools during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Occupational risk-prevention diagnosis: A study of construction SMEs in Spain

En este trabajo se estudia el grado de implantación de la prevención de riesgos laborales en el sistema de gestión de las pequeñas y medianas empresas (pymes) del sector de la construcción en España, mediante el análisis prospectivo de los datos recogidos en una muestra de 106 empresas (pymes) en el ámbito geográfico de la Comunidad Autónoma de Castilla-La Mancha (España). La muestra seleccionada se adapta a la realidad económica de esta comunidad autónoma, teniendo en cuenta el tamaño de la población y los intervalos de confianza y probabilidad elegidos. Las técnicas de recogida de datos empleadas han sido: la encuesta, preguntas abiertas, preguntas cerradas y preguntas dicotómicas. Para contrastar la información obtenida y validar su grado de fiabilidad, se ha utilizado la técnica cualitativa de grupos de discusión, atendiendo a criterios de formación en materia preventiva y jerarquía dentro de la empresa, con experiencia en el sector de la construcción; así como a expertos del sector preventivo de la administración pública. Los resultados extraídos del estudio ponen de manifiesto la dificultad que tienen las pymes de construcción en España para integrar la prevención de riesgos laborales en el propio sistema de gestión de la empresa, recurriendo a organizaciones preventivas externas en la mayoría de los casos y al margen de la propia estructura corporativa de la empresa (AU)

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