Health Risk Solutions LLC , McLean, VA, USA.
J Occup Environ Hyg. 2012;9(3):172-84. doi: 10.1080/15459624.2012.659980.
This study extends by 8 years (1998-2005) a previous survey of asphalt fume exposures within North American asphalt processing and roofing product manufacturing workers. It focuses on characterizing personal, full-shift samples and seeks to address several limitations of the previous survey. Five major roofing manufacturers with established occupational health programs submitted workplace asphalt fume sampling results to a central repository for review and analysis. A certified industrial hygienist-led quality assurance team oversaw the data collection, consolidation, and analysis efforts. The analysis dataset consisted of 1261 personal exposure samples analyzed for total particulate (TP) and benzene soluble fraction (BSF) using existing NIOSH methods. For BSF, the survey's arithmetic (0.25 mg/m(3), SD = 0.62) and geometric (0.12 mg/m(3), GSD = 2.88) means indicate that the industry has sustained the control levels achieved in the late 1980s, early 1990s. Similar results were found for TP. The survey-wide summary statistics are consistent with other post-1990 multi-company exposure studies. Although these findings indicate that currently available controls are capable of achieving substantial (95%) compliance with the current threshold limit value in asphalt processing and inorganic shingle and roll plants, they also show that the majority of plants are not achieving this level of exposure control, and that exposures are significantly higher in plants making other product lines, particularly organic felt products. The current retrospective survey of existing company exposure data, like its predecessor, has several important limitations. These include lack of data on smaller manufacturers and on several commercially important product lines; insufficient information on the prevalence and effectiveness of engineering controls; no standard criteria by which to define and assess exposures in non-routine operations; and a paucity of exposure data collected as part of a random sampling strategy. To improve efforts to characterize exposures and potential health risks in roofing plants, a prospective program is currently being developed and piloted with the aim of building a more complete, higher-quality database based on a common industrial hygiene protocol.
本研究将北美沥青加工和屋顶产品制造工人的沥青烟雾暴露情况的先前调查延长了 8 年（1998-2005 年）。它侧重于描述个人的全班样本，并试图解决先前调查的几个局限性。五个拥有成熟职业健康计划的主要屋顶制造商向中央存储库提交了工作场所沥青烟雾采样结果，以供审查和分析。一个由认证工业卫生学家领导的质量保证团队监督了数据收集、整合和分析工作。分析数据集由 1261 个个人暴露样本组成，使用现有的 NIOSH 方法分析总颗粒物 (TP) 和苯可溶部分 (BSF)。对于 BSF，调查的算术平均值（0.25mg/m(3)，SD=0.62）和几何平均值（0.12mg/m(3)，GSD=2.88）表明，该行业维持了 20 世纪 80 年代末、90 年代初达到的控制水平。TP 也有类似的结果。全调查的汇总统计数据与其他 1990 年后的多公司暴露研究一致。尽管这些发现表明，目前可用的控制措施能够实现沥青加工和无机石板和卷材厂当前阈值限值的实质性（95%）遵守，但它们也表明，大多数工厂未能达到这种暴露控制水平，并且在生产其他产品线的工厂中，暴露水平显著更高，特别是有机毛毡产品。与前一次调查一样，当前对现有公司暴露数据的回顾性调查存在几个重要的局限性。这些包括缺乏关于较小制造商和几个商业上重要产品线的数据；关于工程控制的普遍性和有效性的信息不足；没有定义和评估非例行操作中暴露情况的标准标准；以及作为随机抽样策略的一部分收集的暴露数据不足。为了改善对屋顶工厂暴露和潜在健康风险的描述，目前正在制定并试点一项前瞻性计划，目的是基于共同的工业卫生协议建立一个更完整、更高质量的数据库。
