Investigation of the Health of Electronic Waste Treatment Workers / 环境与健康杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To understand the health of the electronic waste (e-waste) treatment workers and the adverse effects of e-waste on the workers engaged in e-waste dismantlement.Methods Health states were assessed by questionnaire investigation on 226 e-waste dismantlement workers and 172 non e-waste dismantlement workers (control group).Results The prevalence rates of headache/vertigo(47.7%),tetter /itch (15.0%),nausea(11.1%),insomnia(9.7%),hypomnesia (5.3%),nasal obstruction(5.3%),and conjunctiva congestion(4.8%) in e-waste dismantlement workers were significantly higher than that in the control group,and it seemed that the severity of the symptoms was strongly related to the type of work.Furthermore,there was a tendency that rate of insomnia raised with the length of service in the circuit boards dismantlement group.Conclusion E-waste dismantlement will produce adverse effects on health of the employed workers.