BACKGROUND: Anthropometrics is very important when ensuring a physical match between end users and product or workstations. OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study are twofold, to provide anthropometric data for the design of products and to examine the secular changes in the adult Chilean workers in a period of more than 20 years. METHODS: Nineteen anthropometric measurements from two samples from 1995 and 2016 were compared using independent t-test (95% confidence interval), where additionally absolute and relative differences were calculated. RESULTS: The secular trend observed for Stature is characterized by an increase average of 20mm and 10.5mm per decade for females and males, respectively. There is a positive secular trend for both genders, which is observed for most of the selected body measurements. The most pronounced increases were onWeight, Shoulder breadth, Body mass index, Popliteal height; Buttock-popliteal length and Hip width. CONCLUSIONS: Segmental dimensions that experienced a positive secular trend, together with Weight and Stature, are highly correlated with seating design, addressing the need to review products targeting Chilean adult workers, such as public transport seats, office furniture or industrial workplaces.

Anthropometry is critical for product and workplace design. Highly prevalent, office work is associated with sedentarism and physical discomfort due to prolonged sitting. Dynamic seating (alternating across sitting, perching, and standing) has been suggested as an alternative to overcome those problems. The current study tested a large sample of anthropometric data for mismatch levels against national and international office furniture standards using dynamic seating as a framework with traditional and perching mismatch equations, applied to three recommended dynamic seating components. Dimensions present in the standards used did not match the majority of the sample. For sitting, seat width and depth individually presented the lowest levels of match, as well as under cumulative fit of all office furniture dimensions. However, these were alleviated when incorporating adjustability. Perching was shown to be generally impeded given commercially-available chair height options. Limitations in state-of-the-art perching equations are discussed, and two new models are proposed as design alternatives. Further research should focus on testing the criteria presented in this research through discomfort and objective measures.

Anthropometry has been used extensively for designing safe and sustainable products and workplaces. However, it is common that designers need straightforward guidelines and dimensions, which they often lack, for specific design situations. Anthropometric data are usually presented in tables that summarize percentile values, separated by gender, of a specific population, which makes it difficult for designers to generate applications for mixed populations, such as industrial settings. Using a recently collected anthropometric database of Chilean workers (male and female), international standards of dimensions for working height, depth, and ideal manual handling height are tested with univariate and bivariate methods. Alternative dimensions are presented for both adjustable and non-adjustable designs. Additionally, procedures to combine samples, and for knowing how many users match with a particular design are explained using the sample data. As expected, adjustable designs proved to match with higher numbers of users, while non-adjustable dimensions recommended by ISO presented low levels of matching. Furthermore, the non-adjustable design achieved 83% of matching, which increased to the desired levels (90%) with the inclusion of a 50 mm increase platform. Finally, the Z-Score equation proved to be a useful tool to know the percentages of the population that are matched with a particular design dimension. Relevance for the industry: Dimensions for working height, depth, and ideal manual handling heights, which are currently not available, are provided for Chilean workers. A method to determine the matching percentage in a population is explained, in order to assess matching probabilities when having only summarized anthropometric tables and the dimensions for the design itself.

Chile has experienced significant improvements in its economy; thus, a secular trend in height has been observed in its population. Gender equality has also improved hand in hand with active policies addressing the gender gap in several dimensions (work, education, health) and overall economic improvement. This study examined changes in sexual height dimorphism in four samples of Chilean male and female working-age subjects and attempted to establish associations with gender equality and welfare. Sexual height dimorphism was calculated and compared with gender equality and overall welfare indicators between 1955 and 1995. Sexual height dimorphism reduction was seen to be strongly associated with greater gender equality and some general welfare indicators, such as the infant mortality rate. Gross domestic product per capita was not associated with sexual height dimorphism, but it showed significant associations with gender equality indicators. Overall, the gender gap has been reduced in Chile, which can be observed through improvements in gender equality indicators and a reduction in height dimorphism, mainly in areas associated with women's health. However, gender equality is still far behind in terms of female labour participation and women in political power, which require attention and further improvements.