effects of prioritize inspections on occupational health hazards control in workplaces in Iran

Iran, a newly industrializing country in Middle East, has a workforce of 25 million people. Most employees are working in agriculture, manufacturing, services, construction, commerce sectors, carpet weaving and mining. This article aims to explore the improvement of occupational harmful agents in workplaces due to implement "prioritize inspections". In 2012, the system of "prioritize inspections "was defined for surveillance on enterprises replace of routine inspection. From this system, the enterprises classified on four groups based on health hazards and enterprises with high risk were under more surveillance. The information about each enterprise was collected by health centers, in five provinces and reported by a recommended form to Centre of Environmental and Occupational Health [CEOH]. At this program, the inspections from high and medium hazards were increased in all of provinces. The results showed there was a significant difference between the control of health hazards in before and after beginning of "prioritize inspections"[P=0.048]. The control of noise, fumes and providing of proper illumination increased from 8 to 10%, 9to 9.5%, 12.9 to 15.4%, respectively, at under study provinces in 2012 compared to 2011. The surveillance based on "prioritize inspections" increased the quality of occupational health inspections that causes to prevent occupational health diseases

[Quantitative risk assessment of occupational exposure to Volatile Organic Compounds in the oil-dependent chemical industry]

Background and Purpose: Personal exposure to volatile organic compounds can cause variety of adverse health effects, containing a large range from non-cancer effects up to cancer. The purpose of this study was quantitative risk assessment of occupational exposure to Volatile Organic Compounds in the oil-dependent chemical industry.

Materials and Methods: In this cross sectional study NIOSH 1501 and 2549 methods were applied for sampling and analyzing the amount of hydrocarbons in the oil-dependents of chemical and after detecting hydrocarbons, the quantitative risk assessment was calculated by United States Environmental Protection Agency method. Also the Hazard Quotient parameter for non-cancer VOCs and Life time Cancer Risk for cancer VOCs were calculated. The collected data were analyzed by SPSS16 software.

Results: The Life time Cancer Risk [LCR] of benzene for 13complexes were Definite and for 8 complexes, in all complexes that have been studied, the LCR of benzene were more than threshold limit recommended by WHO. The Lifetime Cancer risk of trichloroethylene in one complex and ethyl benzene in two complexes were Definite. The Hazard Quotient of xylene, chlorobenzene, methyl ethyl ketone and N-hexane in several complexes were more than values recommended by WHO. There are significant relationships between carcinogenic hydrocarbons risk and parameters like age and work history, with the correlation coefficient of 0.336 and 0.409 respectively [P< 0.001].

Conclusion: This method ofrisk assessment is comprehensive and achieved results can be used for correcting and controlling prioritization of resources in case of reducing the level of risk.

Optimization of a novel setup for an on-line study of elemental mercury adsorption by cold-vapor atomic absorption spectrometry

The objective of this work was developing a simple and stable time-based on-line setup for assessing the potential of mercury [Hg] vapor adsorption of the commercial sorbents used in air sampling and control operation followed by cold vapor atomic absorption spectrometry [CVAAS]. A special designed separation chamber was used where reduction of the injected Hg [II] solution took place. Purge gas passes through this chamber resulting to a prompt release of mercury vapor, purging into the adsorbent that regulated at the desired adsorption temperature. After sorbent saturation, in order to study the adsorption parameters of sorbents [activated carbon and bone char] such as breakthrough time [BTT], and adsorptive capacity, mercury gas stream was passed through the sorbents, directly transport to the CVAAS. Preliminary experiments concerning the reductant solution showed that SnCl[2] offers higher stability than NaBH[4]. Around the loading range 0.125-2.5 ml min-1 of 100 micro g l[-1] Hg[II] solution, a linear calibration curve with the equation peak area=0.134; loading flow=-0.017 and a correlation coefficient r=0.996 was obtained, and the detection limit was improved up to c[L]=1micro g l[-1]. The relative standard deviation of five measurements of lowest flow loading of Hg [II] was RSD=2.8%. The significant differences were observed in the breakthrough time and mercury adsorptive capacity between activated carbon and bone char [P=0.010]. This novel setup is suitable for an on-line study of elemental mercury adsorption, determination of breakthrough time and adsorption capacity, and because of its stable performance during all experiments; it can be applied to the time based studies