Strategies to Assess Occupational Exposure to Airborne Nanoparticles: Systematic Review and Recommendations

In many industrial sectors, workers are exposed to manufactured or unintentionally emitted airborne nanoparticles (NPs). To develop prevention and enhance knowledge surrounding exposure, it has become crucial to achieve a consensus on how to assess exposure to airborne NPs by inhalation in the workplace. Here, we review the literature presenting recommendations on assessing occupational exposure to NPs. The 23 distinct strategies retained were analyzed in terms of the following points: target NPs, objectives, steps, “measurement strategy” (instruments, physicochemical analysis, and data processing), “contextual information” presented, and “work activity” analysis. The robustness (consistency of information) and practical aspects (detailed methodology) of each strategy were estimated. The objectives and methodological steps varied, as did the measurement techniques. Strategies were essentially based on NPs measurement, but improvements could be made to better account for “contextual information” and “work activity”. Based on this review, recommendations for an operational strategy were formulated, integrating the work activity with the measurement to provide a more complete assessment of situations leading to airborne NP exposure. These recommendations can be used with the objective of producing homogeneous exposure data for epidemiological purposes and to help improve prevention strategies.

The use of pesticides in French viticulture: a badly controlled technology transfer!

The use of pesticides is one of the techniques employed in modern agriculture and in particular in intensive agriculture. The risks for the environment and for worker health have been debated in western countries for about ten years. Recent developments in epidemiology, toxicology and ergotoxicology have clearly revealed that pesticides could harm the health of farmers (cancers, neurological diseases and reproductive disorders). Failures and shortcomings in the risk prevention systems have also come to light. This paper aims to address the risks associated to the use of pesticides in French vineyards. The chosen approach draws from an anthropological approach as well as from developments in ergotoxicology applied to the French vineyard work. We shall discuss the use of pesticides from the point of view of the transfer of technology. Our recent research has shown that this technology transfer was not completely controlled by the different stakeholders.

Analysis of organizational conditions for risk management: the case study of a petrochemical site.

This paper presents an ergonomic intervention in the petrochemical sector. The scheduled shutdown of one of the gas production sites has led the management to reduce the number of personnel on site, and then to get new recruits and experienced technicians from other sites as the policy for leaving personnel had not been properly planned, resulting in understaffing on site. Workers with seniority on the site, and who are also the most experienced do not accept the way newcomers are induced on site, whereas the management accuses them of resisting change. The intervention consisted in reconnecting local and corporate management through making the work activity visible and linking two sets of data that they held separately. Different types of analyses were made, work demography, decision making processes and tools used by the management, analysis of the building of career and work logics. Those different levels of analysis are gathered in macro-ergonomics, while showing the possible combinations between top down and bottom up approaches. The intervention resulted in concrete changes: HR simulation tool, training organisation, feedback.