Department of Sanitary and Environmental Engineering, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brazil.
Fundacentro-Jorge Duprat Foundation for occupational medicine and safety, Florianópolis, Brazil.
Nanotoxicology. 2020 Nov;14(9):1258-1270. doi: 10.1080/17435390.2020.1815094. Epub 2020 Sep 10.
Exposure to nanomaterials (NMs) can be considered as human, occupational or environmental. Occupational exposure may be experienced by the workers and/or researchers who develop and produce these products and the hazards inherent to exposure are not yet fully known. Quantitative and qualitative methods are available to estimate the occupational risks associated with the handling of NMs, however, both have limitations. In this context, the objective of this study was to create a Bayesian network (BN) that will allow an assessment of the occupational risk associated with the handling of NMs in research laboratories. The BN was developed considered variables related to exposure, the hazards associated with NMs and also the existing control measures in the work environment, such as collective protection equipment (CPE), administrative measures and personal protection equipment (PPE). In addition to assessing the occupational risk, simulations were carried out by the laboratory manager to obtain information on which actions should be taken to reduce the risk. The development of a BN to assess the occupational risk associated with the handling of NMs is a novel aspect of this study. As a distinctive feature, the BN has measurement control variables in addition to considering CPE, administrative measures and PPE. An advantage of this network in relation to other risk assessment models is that it allows the easy execution of simulations and provides a guide for a decision making by identifying which actions should be taken to minimize the risk.
暴露于纳米材料（NMs）可被视为人为、职业或环境因素所致。从事纳米材料研发和生产的工人和/或研究人员可能会接触到这些产品，而其暴露所带来的危害尚未完全明晰。目前已经有定量和定性的方法来评估与纳米材料处理相关的职业风险，但这两种方法都存在局限性。在此背景下，本研究的目的是创建一个贝叶斯网络（BN），以评估研究实验室中处理纳米材料所带来的职业风险。该 BN 考虑了与暴露相关的变量、纳米材料相关的危害以及工作环境中现有的控制措施，如集体防护设备（CPE）、行政措施和个人防护设备（PPE）。除了评估职业风险外，实验室经理还进行了模拟，以获取有关应采取哪些行动来降低风险的信息。本研究的一个新颖之处在于，开发了一种用于评估处理纳米材料所带来的职业风险的 BN。该 BN 的一个显著特点是，除了考虑 CPE、行政措施和 PPE 外，它还具有测量控制变量。与其他风险评估模型相比，该网络的一个优势在于，它允许轻松执行模拟，并通过确定应采取哪些行动来最小化风险，为决策提供指导。
