纺织企业噪声职业危害风险评价及降噪措施

噪声是纺织业的主要职业危害之一。纺织企业生产车间的噪声不仅会影响到纺织生产的效率、工人的工作能力及安全,还会对纺织工人的健康造成危害,甚至导致职业病。以南方某纺织企业为研究对象,对其生产车间的噪声进行了调查测量,并采用职业病作业危害、职业接触风险评估二种评价方法,对该企业各生产工序的噪声职业危害进行风险评价,得出评价结论,从声源、声传播途径、个体防护及管理制度四个方面提出了降噪措施,以便更好地加强防治,预防减少噪声职业危害。     

医务人员职业健康危害及其关键控制环节

通过查阅、分析大量文献,结合实际工作经验,系统阐述了医务人员面临的主要职业危害因素,并针对我国医务人员职业危害现状和防治工作中存在的主要问题,提出防治关键环节和措施。分析表明:我国医务人员职业暴露危害严重;医务人员的生命质量和平均寿命低于普通人群;医院职业卫生立法和技术标准滞后;防治措施不力,医务人员职业健康权益得不到有效保护。同时指出对医务人员职业危害防治的关键措施:必须通过加强科学研究、制定法规标准、建设医院安全文化、加强宣传教育和培训、推广免疫接种和防护技术、科学设计工作流程、加强心理疏导等关键措施,有效防治医务人员职业健康危害。     

83家井工煤矿在岗农民工尘肺病现状调查及预防对策研究

为调查井工煤矿在岗农民工尘肺病防治现状并提出对策措施,采用分层整群抽样调查方法对4省（市）的83家井工煤矿进行调研,调查内容包括:职业卫生管理现状、职业健康监护与尘肺病诊断资料、X线胸片、农民工基本情况、职业卫生知识知晓情况、社会保险待遇等。调查结果显示:83家井工煤矿的职业病危害防治工作领导小组设置率和管理制度制定率均为100%,但制度内容和职业卫生培训缺乏针对性;粉尘危害防治费用平均为吨煤0.18元/月;采煤和掘进工作面的总尘浓度约为1.02～49.5 mg/m3;在岗检查时,农民工肺部异常的检出率高于正式工,在岗农民工疑似尘肺病检出率为7.94%,农民工尘肺病平均发病工龄14.47 a±6.79 a,平均发病年龄42.56岁±5.80岁,与正式工相比,农民工发病工龄短、发病年龄小。因此,建议政府从法规标准建设、探索职业健康责任险、加大监管力度等方面,企业从强化主体责任意识、源头治理及农民工职业卫生培训等方面,加强农民工尘肺病的防治工作。     

Risk Assessment in the Working Environment in Estonia

The first step to chart hazards in the working environment in Estonia (labour force: 0.65 million) was taken by the National Board of Health Protection in the beginning of 1996.

The existing chemical, physical, and biological agents in the working environment were investigated with the help of local health inspectors in all counties. An identification of hazards and workers at risk was carried out. The results of the analysis showed that 16% of Estonian industrial workers are exposed to different hazards: 20,000 persons are exposed to noise, 11,000 are working in the conditions of vibration, 10,000 are affected by unsatisfactory microclimate, 6,000 complain about long-lasting work in a compulsory posture, the overexertion of eyes is suffered by 5,500 persons, and physical overload by 3,500 workers. In the group of chemical hazards the greatest numbers of workers are exposed to organic dust (6,500) and welding aerosols (5,400), followed by petroleum products (2,700), and oil-shale dust (4,300). The measurements of working conditions showed that an average of 30.3% of the results are above the standards. Proposals for the improvement of the situation in occupational safety and health are presented.     

Delphi法职业危害风险评估模型及案例研究

为科学合理地进行建设项目职业病危害风险分类,基于系统工程及风险评估的基本原理,采用Delphi法分析和确定了影响职业病危害风险程度的因素,通过构建风险评估指标体系,建立了职业病危害影响因子赋值法(OHFA)定量化风险评估模型。根据对作业场所的危害源、本质及附加防护设施水平、人员接触机会、职业病防治管理等因子的综合分析,预测分析了研究对象的职业病危害的风险程度,为职业病危害风险辨识、风险评估、防治管理及防护设施设计等提供参考。并以某石化行业硫磺回收项目为实例进行应用与验证,得出了该项目的总体职业病危害风险度值为12,风险等级为Ⅰ级,各职业病危害因素的风险度由高到底排序为硫化氢、一氧化碳、二氧化硫、硫磺、高温,其风险分类的关键决定因素为硫化氢。实践表明该方法与专家评估结果及工程实际吻合较好,应用于职业病危害风险评估中可给出定量化的风险分类结果。     

Do fixed-term workers have a higher injury rate?

One of the most remarkable changes in the labour markets of industrialised countries has been the increase of fixed-term employment. Naturally, the ways in which this development impacts on the quality of working life has awoken increasing scientific discussion. The aim of this paper is to examine these connections from the perspective of occupational injury. The majority of research literature in this field has shown that fixed-term workers have a risk of occupational injury that is several times higher than permanent workers.The analysis presented here is based on three large independent statistical data sets. In the Work and Health Study 10.9% of fixed-term and 10.0% of permanent workers experienced occupational injury during the previous 12 months. In The Victim Survey of Finland 5.4% of fixed-term and 6.5% of permanent workers were injured at work. In The Quality of Working Life Survey 3% of fixed-term and 5% of permanent workers were involved in occupational injury. These three data sets showed unanimously that fixed-term workers did not have a higher occupational injury rate than permanent workers. The most important explanatory factor was that in Finland fixed-term contracts are concentrated in public services such as education and health care with a predominance of female workers. Still, the connection remained after adjusting the basic background variables of age, socio-economic status and industry.     

流动人员职业健康监护模式分析与探索

流动人口的职业健康监护是职业卫生工作的重点与难点,是预防控制职业病,是保障流动人口职业健康和公平劳动权益的重要环节。根据对北京、浙江、山东、湖北、内蒙等地的调研,我们对流动人口职业健康监护现有模式进行了分析比较,并提出了新的模式框架与实施条件,以提高流动人口的职业健康监护率,保障流动人口职业健康．     

职业危害现状与对策分析

本文陈述了我国职业危害作业场所多、涉及面广、职业病患者多的现状，阐述了职业病防治技术和能力落后、有毒有害工种和工序转移、预防性工作审核不严等产生职业危害的原因；论述了职业病危害由城市向农村、由东部向西部、由大企业向小企业的转移倾向和职业病发病年龄呈现年轻化及新兴职业相关疾病发生的特点，提出相应的预防和控制职业危害的对策。     

流动人员职业健康监护存在的问题与对策

流动人口的职业健康监护问题是职业卫生工作的重点与难点,是预防控制职业病,是保障流动人口职业健康和公平劳动权益的重要环节。根据对北京、浙江、山东、湖北、内蒙等地的调研,对流动人口职业健康监护存在的问题及原因进行了总结分析,结合目前我国职业卫生资源提出了政策建议。     

Continuous Safety Sampling Methodology

This research introduces a proactive methodology for accident prevention, called Continuous Safety Sampling Methodology, by utilizing the principles of work sampling and control charting. Sampling is performed to observe the occurrence of conditions that may become hazardous in a given system. These conditions, known as dendritics, may become hazards and could result in an accident or occupational disease. Continuous Safety Sampling Methodology performs a random sampling for the occurrence of these dendritics. The collected data are then used to generate a control chart. Based on the pattern of the control chart, a system “under control” is not disturbed whereas a system “out of control” is investigated for potential conditions becoming hazardous. Appropriate steps are then taken to eliminate or control these conditions to maintain a desired safe system.     

Occupational and public health and safety in a changing work environment: An integrated approach for risk assessment and prevention

During recent years the work environment has undergone significant changes regarding working time, years of employment, work organization, type of employment contracts and working conditions. In this paper, consequences of these changes on occupational and public health and safety are examined. These include the disruption of human biological rhythms, the increase of workers fatigue due to changes in patterns of working hours and years of employment, job insecurity and occupational stress, which have a serious impact on workers’ health and may result in an increase in occupational accidents. Unsafe work practices related to workload and time pressure, the impact of work changes on public safety and the deterioration of workers’ living conditions with respect to income, social-family life, health and insurance benefits, are also described. In this context, difficulties that occur due to the changing work environment in conducting effective occupational risk assessments and implementing OSH measures are discussed (for example, frequent changes between tasks and workplaces, underreporting of occupational accidents and diseases, lack of methodological tools, etc.). A fundamental criterion used while studying consequences on health and safety and the relative preventive measures is that health and safety must be approached as ‘the promotion and maintenance at the highest degree of the physical, mental and social well-being of workers’ and not only as retention of their work ability. Limits in combining “flexibility” at work and overall protection of occupational and public safety and health in a competitive market are put forward for discussion.     

Occupational hazards to health of port workers

Objectives. The aim of this article is to reduce the risk of occupational hazards and improve safety conditions by enhancing hazard knowledge and identification as well as improving safety behavior for freight port enterprises. Methods. In the article, occupational hazards to health and their prevention measures of freight port enterprises have been summarized through a lot of occupational health evaluation work, experience and understanding. Results. Workers of freight port enterprises confront an equally wide variety of chemical, physical and psychological hazards in production technology, production environment and the course of labor. Such health hazards have been identified, the risks evaluated, the dangers to health notified and effective prevention measures which should be put in place to ensure the health of the port workers summarized. Discussion. There is still a long way to go for the freight port enterprises to prevent and control the occupational hazards. Except for occupational hazards and their prevention measures, other factors that influence the health of port workers should also be paid attention to, such as age, work history, gender, contraindication and even the occurrence and development rules of occupational hazards in current production conditions.     

Validation of a questionnaire about the perception of occupational biohazard in Spanish companies

Objectives. The aim of this work was to develop, validate and test a new questionnaire to assess the biological risk in workers with intentional or unintentional exposure to biological agents. Methods. A questionnaire including 34 questions was developed to study the perception of workers against occupational biohazard. Content Validity Index (CVI) and Content Validity Ratio (CVR) were calculated for the analysis of content validity. A pilot study was carried out with 60 workers from 17 companies performing analysis of Cronbach's α to assess the internal consistency or reliability. Results. A total of 518 workers from 51 Spanish companies in which there is exposure to biological agents participated in the study yielding a response rate of 90%. The final questionnaire obtained a Cronbach's α > 0.759 with a stable test–retest result. The questionnaire validation demonstrates that it could be used to evaluate the biological risks and help the prevention of occupational accidents and diseases. Discussion. This study has validated the need to evaluate worker's perception against occupational risks, as well as the application of prevention methods and protective equipment. It is a first step towards developing an occupational biohazards assessment method including all the requirements set by the European Health and Safety Strategy 2013–2020.     

Inherent occupational health assessment during process research and development stage

Occupational health studies the interaction of work and health, especially the long-term effect of chemicals to health. In this paper an Inherent Occupational Health Index has been developed for assessing the health risks of process routes during process research and development stage. The method takes into account both the hazard from the chemicals present and the potential for the exposure of workers to the chemicals. The index can be used either for determining the level of inherent occupational health hazards or comparing alternative process routes for these risks. The method is tailored for the process research and development stage by including only such properties of chemicals and operating conditions of process, which are available already in this early stage. In the end of this paper the approach is demonstrated by comparing the inherent occupational healthiness of six methyl methacrylate process routes using three different types of index calculations; additive-type, average-type, and worst case-type. The study discloses that the average- and worst case-based approaches analyze the characteristics of a route better than the additive calculation, which is greatly affected by the number of steps in the route. A quantitative standard scale for the index is also developed to allow health level assessment of a single process.     

Epidemiology of occupational acute traumatic hand injuries: a literature review

The purpose of this review was to summarize the literature on occupational, acute, traumatic hand injury and suggest directions for future research. In 1996, the leading occupational injury treated in United States' hospital emergency departments was an acute hand injury (e.g. laceration, crush or fracture). These injuries affected 30% of an estimated 3.3 million injured workers (990,000). Cuts and lacerations of the fingers ranked third after back and leg strains in the number of lost workday cases in the USA in 1994. The incidence rate of hand injuries studied in seven manufacturing environments around the world ranged from 4 to 11 per 100 workers per year. Workers aged 24 years or less had the highest risk of hand injury. Men had higher rates of severe hand injury than women.Despite the high frequency and significant amount of lost work time associated with these injuries, they are poorly understood from an etiological perspective. There is only one case-control study of occupational hand injury in the literature. That study suggested an important role for both fixed (age) and transient risk factors (doing an unusual task) at the time of the injury. More analytic epidemiological research is needed to identify potentially modifiable risk or protective factors (e.g. glove use) for acute hand injuries. In this regard, the case-crossover design, a relatively new epidemiological approach using cases as their own controls, could prove an efficient method for determining transient, modifiable risk factors for acute, occupational hand injury.     

Prevention of occupational injuries: Evidence for effective good practices in foundries

IntroductionOccupational injuries are a relevant research and practical issue. However, intervention studies evaluating the effectiveness of workplace injury prevention programs are seldom performed. Method: The effectiveness of a multifaceted intervention aimed at reducing occupational injury rates (incidence/employment-based = IR, frequency/hours-based = FR, severity = SR) was evaluated between 2008 and 2013 in 29 Italian foundries (22 ferrous; 7 non-ferrous; 3,460 male blue collar workers/year) of varying sizes. Each foundry established an internal multidisciplinary prevention team for risk assessment, monitoring and prevention of occupational injuries, involving employers, occupational physicians, safety personnel, workers' representatives, supervisors. Targets of intervention were workers, equipment, organization, workplace, job tasks. An interrupted time series (ITS) design was applied. Results: 4,604 occupational injuries and 83,156 lost workdays were registered between 2003 and 2013. Statistical analysis showed, after intervention, a reduction of all injury rates (− 26% IR, − 15% FR, −18% SR) in ferrous foundries and of SR (− 4%) in non-ferrous foundries. A significant (p = 0.021) ‘step-effect’ was shown for IR in ferrous foundries, independent of secular trends (p < 0.001). Sector-specific benchmarks for all injury rates were developed separately for ferrous and non-ferrous foundries. Conclusions: Strengths of the study were: ITS design, according to standardized quality criteria (i.e., at least three data points before and three data points after intervention; clearly defined intervention point); pragmatic approach, with good external validity; promotion of effective good practices. Main limitations were the non-randomized nature and a medium length post-intervention period. In conclusion, a multifaceted, pragmatic and accountable intervention is effective in reducing the burden of occupational injuries in small-, medium- and large-sized foundries. Practical Applications: The study poses the basis for feasible good practice guidelines to be implemented to prevent occupational injuries, by means of sector-specific numerical benchmarks, with potentially relevant impacts on workers, companies, occupational health professionals and society at large.     

工作场所超细颗粒物暴露评估与风险评估研究进展

纳米技术产业的快速发展促使纳米材料需求量不断增长,纳米材料的规模化生产及使用,增加了暴露于超细颗粒物的职业人群数量,且工种复杂多样,尤其在自动化程度低、工人职业卫生防护意识薄弱的作业场所,对接触者有潜在的职业暴露风险.从现场暴露评估策略、检测方法、接触限值以及风险评估手段,综述针对超细颗粒物这一新型职业危害因素的研究进...     

Two discrete choice experiments on laboratory safety decisions and practices

IntroductionThe path toward enhancing laboratory safety requires a thorough understanding of the factors that influence the safety-related decision making of laboratory personnel. Method: We developed and administered a web-based survey to assess safety-related decision making of laboratory personnel of a government research organization. The survey included two brief discrete choice experiments (DCEs) that allowed for quantitative analysis of specific factors that potentially influence safety-related decisions and practices associated with two different hypothetical laboratory safety scenarios. One scenario related to reporting a laboratory spill, and the other scenario involved changing protective gloves between laboratory rooms. The survey also included several brief self-report measures of attitude, perception, and behavior related to safety practices. Results: Risk perception was the most influential factor in safety-related decision making in both scenarios. Potential negative consequences and effort associated with reporting an incident and the likelihood an incident was detected by others also affected reporting likelihood. Wearing gloves was also affected somewhat by perceived exposure risk, but not by other social or work-related factors included in the scenarios. Conclusions: The study demonstrated the promise of DCEs in quantifying the relative impact of several factors on safety-related choices of laboratory workers in two hypothetical but realistic scenarios. Participants were faced with hypothetical choice scenarios with realistic features instead of traditional scaling techniques that ask about attitudes and perceptions. The methods are suitable for addressing many occupational safety concerns in which workers face tradeoffs in their safety-related decisions and behavior. Practical Application: Safety-related decisions regarding laboratory practices such as incident reporting and use of PPE were influenced primarily by workers’ perceptions of risk of exposure and severity of risks to health and safety. This finding suggests the importance of providing laboratory workers with adequate and effective education and training on the hazards and risks associated with their work. DCEs are a promising research method for better understanding the relative influences of various personal, social, and organizational factors that shape laboratory safety decisions and practices. The information gained from DCEs may lead to more targeted training materials and interventions.     

Work-related injuries of educational support staff in schools

This study aims to describe the characteristics of occupational injuries to educational support staff (service worker) in schools. In this research, 803 injured workers registered in 2015 were analyzed in terms of their gender, age, work experience, school type, work type, accident type, agency of accident, nature of injury and injured part of the body for each occupation. The workers were classified into after-school instructor, custodian and cooking staff. Accidents occurred mainly due to slips (35.6%) on floor/stair or contact with high temperature (18.1%). Also, the workers mostly fractured (41.2%) or had burns (19.3%) on their leg/foot (37.1%) or arm/hand/finger (29.8%). The results showed the difference in characteristics and injury pattern of injured persons for each occupation type, addressing the need for customized preventative measures for each situation. The results of this study can be a baseline in devising policies and guidelines for preventing accidents of service workers in schools.     

The “social-physiology” of safety. An integrative approach to understanding organisational psychological mechanisms behind safety performance

This paper aims at contributing to a comprehensive perspective on occupational safety by integrating research on different specific organisational psychological concepts found to contribute to different types of organisational performance, and apply these to an occupational safety context. A second aim was to present perspectives on how occupational safety may be promoted within an organization. The following mechanisms are suggested. A leadership style promoting co-operation, inspiring, fostering group goals, as well as providing individualized support and empowering workers may intrinsically be expected to comprise rich and open communication and thus support the development of high-quality interactions between managers and employees. Such interaction and communication may promote the development of mutual trust, and the development of a good workgroup climate. Trust, in turn, may further promote communication and interaction. Mutual trust, high-quality relations, and a strong group climate may promote workers’ motivation and intentions to contribute to the organisational goals. Managers successful in demonstrating true and consistent priority of workers’ safety may promote the development of workers’ trust but also convince that safety is a prime organisational goal. This may promote workers’ motivation to behave safely. Trustful relations characterized by empowerment and participation are then likely also to support the realization of safety intentions into safe behavior.