School of Population Health, Curtin University, Perth, WA, Australia.
Front Public Health. 2021 Aug 19;9:723154. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2021.723154. eCollection 2021.
Occupational dust exposure can occur in various settings, including bakeries. A case study was conducted in an industrial bakery in Perth, Western Australia, to assess exposure to particulate dust concentration. The factory was separated into three production zones and an office area which represented as a control zone. Results indicated that bakery workers in the production zones were exposed to higher ambient dust particle concentrations compared to those from the office environment. Coarse particles (>10 μm in aerodynamic diameter) were the predominant particle size fraction measured in all studied areas with the highest median exposure level recorded in the dough room (0.181 mg/m, interquartile range 0.283). High personal concentration of respirable particles was also measured in the dough room (median 2.26 mg/m) which exceeded the recommended limit of 1.5 mg/m and was more than 50 times higher than the concentration recorded in the office (0.04 mg/m). The variation in dust concentrations between production zones underlines the need of more knowledge about how aerosol fractions are distributed across the production process. The findings also suggest that bakery workers are exposed to high dust levels that may increase their risk of developing respiratory diseases and the decrease of present exposure levels is imperative.
职业性粉尘暴露可发生于各种环境，包括面包房。本研究在澳大利亚西澳大利亚州珀斯的一家工业面包房中进行，以评估其粉尘浓度暴露情况。该工厂分为三个生产区和一个办公室区域，作为对照区。结果表明，与办公室环境相比，生产区的面包房工人接触的环境粉尘颗粒浓度更高。粗颗粒（空气动力学直径大于 10μm）是所有研究区域中主要的颗粒尺寸部分，在面团室中记录的最高中位暴露水平最高（0.181mg/m，四分位间距为 0.283）。面团室中还测量到高浓度的可吸入颗粒（中位数 2.26mg/m），超过了 1.5mg/m 的推荐限值，比办公室中记录的浓度（0.04mg/m）高出 50 多倍。生产区之间粉尘浓度的差异突出表明，需要更多了解气溶胶颗粒如何在生产过程中分布。研究结果还表明，面包房工人暴露于高粉尘水平下，可能会增加患呼吸道疾病的风险，降低现有暴露水平势在必行。
