A comparative study on the application of different methods of occupation health risk assessment in small furniture manufacturing industry / 预防医学

ABSTRACT

Objective To compare the applicability of different occupational health risk assessment methods in small furniture manufacturing industry. Methods American EPA inhalation risk model, Singapore semi-quantitative risk assessment model of occupational exposure to chemical substances and Australian Occupational Health and Safety Risk Assessment model, were used to assess the occupational health risk in a small furniture manufacturing industry from a city of Zhejiang Province. Results The results of American EPA model showed that the workers who exposed to benzene and formaldehyde had low risk of carcinogens, and who exposed to benzene and xylene had very high risk of non-carcinogens. According to Singapore semi-quantitative risk assessment model, there were low and medium health risk caused by toluene and xylene, and high risk caused by wood dust in preparation and polishing jobs. Similar to the results of other models, Australia qualitative risk assessment model showed that there were medium health risk caused by toluene and xylene, and high risk caused by benzene, wood dust and noise. All of the three methods could found the key risk control point in furniture manufacturing industry. The risk ratios of the three methods were higher than the toxic work classification ratio (P<0.01), and the risk ratio of EPA model were higher than the results of Singapore model and Australia model (P<0.05) . Conclusion All of the three methods can be applied to assess the occupational health risk in furniture manufacturing industry, and the combined application of multiple risk assessment methods can be used as one of the risk assessment strategies.