Koh Dong-Hee, Choi Sangjun, Park Ju-Hyun, Lee Sang-Gil, Kim Hwan-Cheol, Kim Inah, Lim Daesung, Seo Hoekyeong, Park Dong-Uk
Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, International St. Mary's Hospital, Catholic Kwandong University, 25, Simgok-ro 100beon-gil, Seo-gu, Incheon 22711, Korea.
Graduate School of Public Health and Healthcare Management, The Catholic University of Korea, 222, Banpo-daero, Seocho-gu, Seoul 06591, Korea.
Ann Work Expo Health. 2024 Mar 15;68(3):256-268. doi: 10.1093/annweh/wxae006.
Industry- and occupation-based carcinogen exposure matrices play a pivotal role in preventing occupational cancer. While the Korean CARcinogen EXposure (K-CAREX) has been developed in recent years to assess exposure prevalence and intensity by industry, the feasibility of constructing an occupation-based exposure matrix remains unexplored. Hence, the objective of this study is to explore the potential of combining the nationwide work environment measurement database (WEMD) and the special health examination database (SHED) to develop a comprehensive occupation-based exposure matrix.
The WEMD provides information on airborne lead measurements, including industry codes, but it does not include data related to occupations. In contrast, the SHED contains information on both occupation and blood lead levels. By integrating these 2 databases, we attempted to assess airborne lead exposure levels by occupation. Additionally, we performed a rank correlation analysis to compare the airborne exposure levels with corresponding blood lead levels according to occupation.
A total of 35 425 workers who both wore air samplers for lead and underwent special health examinations for lead were extracted between 2019 and 2021. An occupation-based exposure matrix was developed to evaluate the intensity of lead exposure across a range of occupations, encompassing 51 minor occupations and 70-unit occupations. Rank correlation analyses showed strong positive correlations between airborne lead and blood lead measurements according to occupation.
Our study findings suggest that combining 2 nationwide surveillance databases can be an effective approach for creating an occupation-based exposure matrix. However, our results also highlight several limitations that need to be addressed in future studies to improve the accuracy and reliability of such matrices.
基于行业和职业的致癌物暴露矩阵在预防职业性癌症方面起着关键作用。近年来，韩国致癌物暴露（K-CAREX）已被开发用于按行业评估暴露患病率和强度，但构建基于职业的暴露矩阵的可行性仍未得到探索。因此，本研究的目的是探讨结合全国工作环境测量数据库（WEMD）和特殊健康检查数据库（SHED）来开发一个全面的基于职业的暴露矩阵的潜力。
WEMD提供了包括行业代码在内的空气中铅测量信息，但不包括与职业相关的数据。相比之下，SHED包含职业和血铅水平的信息。通过整合这两个数据库，我们试图按职业评估空气中铅的暴露水平。此外，我们进行了等级相关分析，以比较根据职业划分的空气中暴露水平与相应的血铅水平。
在2019年至2021年期间，共提取了35425名既佩戴了铅空气采样器又接受了铅特殊健康检查的工人。开发了一个基于职业的暴露矩阵，以评估一系列职业中铅暴露的强度，涵盖51个细类职业和70个单位职业。等级相关分析表明，根据职业划分，空气中铅与血铅测量值之间存在强正相关。
我们的研究结果表明，结合两个全国性监测数据库可以是创建基于职业的暴露矩阵的有效方法。然而，我们的结果也突出了几个局限性，未来的研究需要解决这些问题，以提高此类矩阵的准确性和可靠性。
