Hutter Hans-Peter, Wallner Peter, Moshammer Hanns, Marsh Gary
Institute of Environmental Health, Center for Public Health, Medical University Vienna, 1090 Vienna, Austria.
Medicine and Environmental Protection, 1080 Vienna, Austria.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2016 Sep 21;13(9):931. doi: 10.3390/ijerph13090931.
In general, routine industrial hygiene (IH) data are collected not to serve for scientific research but to check for compliance with occupational limit values. In the preparation of an occupational retrospective cohort study it is vital to test the validity of the exposure assessment based on incomplete (temporal coverage, departments) IH data. Existing IH data from a large hard metal plant was collected. Individual workers' exposure per year and department was estimated based on linear regression of log-transformed exposure data for dust, tungsten, and cobalt. Estimated data were back-transformed, and for cobalt the validity of the estimates was confirmed by comparison with individual cobalt concentrations in urine. Air monitoring data were available from 1985 to 2012 and urine tests from the years 2008 to 2014. A declining trend and significant differences among departments was evident for all three air pollutants. The estimated time trend fitted the time trend in urine values well. At 1 mg/m³, cobalt in the air leads to an excretion of approximately 200 µg/L cobalt in urine. Cobalt levels in urine were significantly higher in smokers with an interaction effect between smoking and air concentrations. Exposure estimates of individual workers are generally feasible in the examined plant, although some departments are not documented sufficiently enough. Additional information (expert knowledge) is needed to fill these gaps.
一般来说，常规工业卫生（IH）数据的收集并非用于科学研究，而是用于检查是否符合职业接触限值。在准备一项职业回顾性队列研究时，基于不完整的（时间覆盖范围、部门）IH数据来检验暴露评估的有效性至关重要。收集了一家大型硬质合金厂现有的IH数据。根据粉尘、钨和钴的对数转换暴露数据的线性回归，估算了每个工人每年及各部门的暴露情况。对估算数据进行了逆变换，对于钴，通过与尿液中的个体钴浓度进行比较，证实了估算的有效性。可获得1985年至2012年的空气监测数据以及2008年至2014年的尿液检测数据。对于所有三种空气污染物，各部门之间均呈现出下降趋势且存在显著差异。估算的时间趋势与尿液值的时间趋势拟合良好。空气中钴含量为1 mg/m³时，会导致尿液中钴的排泄量约为200 µg/L。吸烟者尿液中的钴水平显著更高，吸烟与空气浓度之间存在交互作用。在被检查的工厂中，对个体工人的暴露估算总体上是可行的，尽管有些部门的记录不够充分。需要额外信息（专家知识）来填补这些空白。
