Respirable Dust Exposure: Symptoms and Effect on Lung Function of Industrial Workers

摘要

Work environment factors such as air quality in the industry have become a public concern recently especially due to issues related to respirable dust. Most of industrial workers are exposed to dust during their daily work activities. A preliminary study was conducted at a paper based mill, palm oil mill and automotive plant in Malaysia to monitor the personal exposure of respirable dust. Personal sampling and questionnaires were administrated in purposed to determine the respiratory health symptoms and supported by a pulmonary lung function test. The result of the study showed most of the workers in paper based mill were exposed to respirable dust when the Time Weightage Average (TWA) result was above the permissible exposure limit which is 5 mg/m~3 and 3 mg/m~3 from Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) standard respectively. From the survey feedbacks, out of 30 symptoms, there are only five symptoms that are significant with the year of exposure. For pulmonary lung function test, there were 81.81% workers are in normal of spiro status for paper based mill. Meanwhile, for palm oil mill and automotive plant, there were almost 53.33% and 65.63% workers in normal spiro status respectively. However, there was no significant relation with the variables noted. Therefore, for a better future for industrial workers, some engineering control and approach have been suggested to the safety and health team to control machines that are fully operated and consider looking into the dust concentration.