Design and Implementation of a Serious Game to Make Construction Workers Aware of Exposure to Silica Dust in the Workplace

Silicosis is a lung disease due to the inhalation of crystalline silica dust. In the province of Quebec in Canada, it is the third pulmonary occupational disease recognized by the Committee on Standards, Equity, Health and Safety at Work. To date, lung transplantation is the only proven curative treatment. Consequently, prevention remains the best way to fight against silicosis. This requires that workers, at risk of exposure, have adequate training on the subject. For this, passive slide-based training is generally used. The goal of this paper is to operate a Serious Game to facilitate the training of construction workers on the prevention of silicosis and the protection of health in the workplace. We are interested in exploiting this media because we see in these types of games an active and situated problem-solving with probably some social interactions. They can transmit knowledge while entertaining the user in diversified activities. In this article, we report the development project and preliminary evaluation of a serious game in which the player is faced with different situations that involve exposure to silica. The aim is to train and make the player aware of silica, its risks, and its consequences. The results show the ability of this serious game to transmit knowledge about silica dust, the risk that it represents for health, the risk tasks and the protective measures in the workplace, and finally the consequences of the inhalation of silica dust.