A hand anthropometric characterization was made in the Colombian Caribbean Coast out of a sample of 41 males and females from Universidad del Norte. The measurements were taken by using a computer tool that was developed and validated with the traditional manual method. This research shows comparisons among the anthropometric parameters of different regions of the country and foreign countries. It also includes the estimation of the circumference of the fingers through a novel statistical approach. Results confirm the predicted diversity of the measurements within the country and abroad.@en

There is a need to know the anthropometric parameters of each population to improve the ergonomic design of tools, workstations and personal protective equipment. In their regular work, humans use their hands to develop their activities, and the required equipment should match with the physical dimensions of the workers. The traditional manual method for measuring takes a long time because of the number of measures and the training of the measurer, who has to first learn how to take each measure, which is why the objective of the software is to diminish the time employed in the taking of the data by systemizing the process. This paper shows a compilation of 25 hand anthropometric measurements from a sample of 41 subjects from the Colombian Caribbean Coast. To take the measures, software was developed and validated with manually taken measures using the t-test for each dimension. The results showed that there was no significant difference between the two methods, which proves the precision of the software. The gather of more data employing the software may represent a reliable normative data set of the hand measurements.@en