ABSTRACT
Background The contradiction between science and operability has always existed in the model of classified occupational health supervision and management. Comprehensive risk assessment method for occupational disease hazards of employers provides risk grading and classification for occupational health management, and it's a new attempt to explore classification supervision and law enforcement. Objective To apply a comprehensive risk assessment method for occupational disease hazards of employers to estimate health risk level of wood furniture enterprises, discuss its advantages and disadvantages, and provide a basis for improving the classified management of occupational health. Methods Seven typical factories were selected in counties with highly concentrated wooden furniture manufacturing. Occupational health field investigation and testing were carried out to estimate occupational disease hazard risk level (Ⅰ, Ⅱ, and Ⅲ). A self-rated checklist was applied to score occupational health management status by interviewing employers, one by one, and to determine occupational health management status grade (A, B, and C) by the score. Thus, a comprehensive risk level (Class A, Class B, and Class C) of a specific factory was obtained from a matrix of occupational disease hazard risk level and management status grade. Risk verification was carried out based on any abnormality reported by regular occupational physical examination in past 3 years. Results Defects in occupational health management were identified in all 7 factories, among which 6 were grade C with key nonconformities (poor), and 1 was grade B (medium). Disqualified occupational disease hazards were found in 6 of 7 factories, and the workstation-specific disqualified rates were 26.09% (12/46) for noise, 14.71% (5/34) for wood dust (hard), and 12.50% (1/8) for xylene. Level Ⅱ (medium) of occupational disease hazard risk was estimated in 5 of 7 factories, while level Ⅲ (high) in 2 factories. All 7 factories were class C (high risk) accessed by the comprehensive risk assessment method for occupational disease hazards. The occupational health surveillance documents showed 636 batches of regular occupational physical examination were ordered by the 7 employers, and a total of 37 workers from 5 factories reported abnormalities in physical examination, among which 3 workers reported dust exposure and 34 workers reported noise exposure. Conclusion The comprehensive risk assessment method for occupational disease hazards of employers is not able to perform with satisfaction in occupational health classification of wooden furniture manufacturing factories yet. It is necessary to expand the pilot to improve this assessment method and develop an efficient supervision mechanism to ensure the authenticity of the data before it is popularized and applied in classified occupational health management.
ABSTRACT
Objective@#To explore the applicability of semi-quantitative risk assessment methods in wood furniture manufacturing companies.@*Methods@#Two medium-sized wooden furniture manufactures were randomly selected as research objects, namely A company and B company. Used the Semi-Quantitative risk assessment method (the ratio method, the index method and the comprehensive method) in the "Guidelines for occupational health risk assessment of chemicals in the workplace" (GBZ/T 298-2017) to conduct occupational hygiene survey, occupational hazard factor testing and occupational health risk assessments for two wood furniture manufacturers from January to October 2018, and compared and analyzed the applicability of these three semi-quantitative risk assessment methods in wooden furniture manufacturing enterprises.@*Results@#The occupational health status of A enterprises was worse than that of B enterprises, and the occupational health risk level was higher than that of B enterprises, and the risk level of A enterprise is 3~4, and the risk level of B enterprise is 2~3. The occupational health risk level obtained by the index method was consistent with the comprehensive method, while the risk level of some occupational disease hazards used the ratio method was inconsistent with the results of the index method and the comprehensive method. Compared with the index method and the comprehensive method, when E/OEL<0.5 or E/OEL≥2, there might be a certain fluctuation in the occupational health risk level obtained by the ratio method.@*Conclusion@#The semi-quantitative risk assessment is more objective, comprehensive and flexible in the application of occupational health risk assessment, and can assess the occupational health risk level of chemical poisons in wood furniture manufacturing enterprises.