Exploration of Issues Relevant to Occupational Exposure Management with Application of Comprehensive Exposure Assessment Strategy

• Main Authors: Hsien-Shun Hsieh, 謝憲順
• Other Authors: 吳俊德
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2009
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/9k77e8

碩士 === 長榮大學 === 職業安全與衛生研究所 === 97 === Enterprises perform workplace environmental monitoring to toxic agents as required by law. However, it is not clear whether the exposure data obtained from the environmental monitoring are used to conduct an exposure assessment for workers, to correct the strategy of exposure sampling, as well as to establish exposure profiles of workers. In this study the workplace environmental monitoring plan and measurement data of an enterprise which participated in the project of comprehensive exposure assessment proposed by government was examined and evaluated for the following items: (1) to examine whether the enterprise complied with the monitoring plan; (2) to conduct exposure data analysis and statistical analyses; (3) to compare the exposure profile of similar exposure groups (SEGs) constructed from the monitoring data in different years; (4) to confirm whether the enterprise used the results of exposure assessment for correcting and adjusting SEGs and constructed the representative exposure profiles of the current SEGs. The results of this study showed that the personnel of occupational safety and health of the enterprise only used the exposure monitoring data for the comparison with the occupational exposure limit of each exposure agent. They did not utilize the exposure data for the purpose of exposure assessment. The workers in the welding processes of the enterprise were exposed to metal fume. However, the exposure measurements of total dust and iron were considered in the environment monitoring plan of the enterprise. The new exposure measurements of metal fume collected in this study showed that the exposure to iron, chromium, nickel and lead of inhalable dust was higher than one-half of its ACGIH TLV, respectively. This indicated that the importance of metal exposure for the welding workers was higher than that of nuisance dust exposure. The range of iron exposure in inhalable dust for the workers in different SEGs varied between 2.8 and 11.4 times. The 8-hour time-weighted exposure concentration of toluene for the solvent handling workers was 56.28 ppm which exceeded one-half of the occupational exposure limits of NIOSH and ACGIH. The SEGs with high exposure were significantly related to the immobility of work tasks and locations and the installation of ventilation system. Because of the lack of hazard information, the knowledge of designing and conducting environmental monitoring, as well as inappropraite exposure management, etc., the potential exposure to chemicals from the processes were still needed to have more evaluations on the magnitude of hazards. In the original strategy of environmental monitoring the workers were classified into 9 SEGs, but the SEGs has not been changed for many years. In this study it was found that at least 25 SEGs including 4 SEGs for periodic exposure monitoring were required to characterize the workers’ exposures. This illustrated that the essence of the comprehensive exposure assessment strategy was not really implemented in the enterprise. According to relevant regulations, the data of environmental monitoring and the results of personnel health surveillance are needed to keep for 3 and 10 years, respectively. However, these regulations didn’t meet the requirement of constructing exposure profiles of workers’ exposures. It should be emphasized that how to use a computer and database program manages exposure data and performs statistical analyses. The system of environmental monitoring based on comprehensive exposure assessment strategy should focus on the issue of continuous improvements on exposure characterization for the workers in an enterprise.