Background
Occupational health risk assessment of dust-exposed operations is an important part of occupational health work. However, there is a lack of objective and effective methods for validating the risk assessment results.
Objective
To explore the application value of chest imaging changes in validating occupational health risk assessment results of dust-exposed operations.
Methods
Alumina dust-exposed workers in an abrasive manufacturing company were selected as study subjects. The Australian Occupational Health and Safety Risk Assessment model (Australian model), and the Singapore semi-quantitative risk assessment model of occupational exposure to chemical substances (Singaporean model) were used to conduct occupational health risk assessment for the target group. Consistency of the assessment results was compared. The cumulative risk value and cumulative risk level of the subjects were calculated. The subjects were examined and diagnosed by chest radiographs, and the differences in the positive rates of aluminum dust shadows of workers at different job risk levels and different cumulative risk levels were compared.
Results
The average risk ratios (RR) of selected alumina dust-exposed workers estimated by the Australian model and the Singapore model were both 0.49±0.10, indicating generally medium occupational health risk level. The evaluation results of the two models were obviously consistent (kappa test, k = 0.823, P < 0.001). Among the 192 subjects, 62 (32.3%) were found to have aluminum dust shadows on their chest radiographs, and there were no case of pneumoconiosis. The aluminum dust shadows were mainly classified by shape and size as “s” (30.7%); the profusion of small opacities was mainly "less than 0/1" (31.3%); they were mostly distributed in 2 pulmonary zones (18.8%), and mostly in the right lower lung (18.8%), and none was seen in the two upper lung zones. The positive rate of aluminum dust shadows in the high-risk workplaces (41.7%) assessed by the Australian model was significantly higher than that in the medium-risk workplaces (22.9%) ( P < 0.01). The positive rate of aluminum dust shadows in the medium-risk workplaces (42.7%) assessed by the Singapore model was significantly higher than that in the low-risk workplaces (23.3%) ( P < 0.01). The cumulative risk levels evaluated by the two models were all atⅠ- Ⅲ levels. With the increase of cumulative risk level by the two models, the positive rates of aluminum dust shadows in the subjects both showed an obvious increase trend ( P < 0.05).
Conclusion
The risk assessment results of the Australian model and the Singapore model are obviously consistent for the target group. They can be jointly applied to the risk assessment of dust-exposed operations. The application of chest imaging changes is of certain value to validate the results of occupational health risk assessment for dust-exposed operations.
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