Educational interventions for preventing lead poisoning in workers.

Background: Occupational lead exposure can lead to serious health effects that range from general symptoms (depression, generalised ache, and digestive signs, such as loss of appetite, stomach ache, nausea, diarrhoea, and constipation) to chronic conditions (cerebrovascular and cardiovascular diseases, cognitive impairment, kidney disease, cancers, and infertility). Educational interventions may contribute to the prevention of lead uptake in workers exposed to lead, and it is important to assess their effectiveness.

Objectives: To assess the effect of educational interventions for preventing lead uptake in workers exposed to lead.

Exposure to respirable dust and crystalline silica in bricklaying education at Dutch vocational training centers.

Background: Construction workers are educated at vocational training centers before they begin their working lives. Future bricklayers and their instructors are exposed to respirable dust and possibly to hazardous respirable crystalline silica from trial mortar.

Methods: Thirty-six personal air samples were collected at six training centers to estimate exposure to respirable dust for both students and teachers.

Variability in quartz exposure in the construction industry: implications for assessing exposure-response relations.

The aims of this study were to determine implications of inter- and intraindividual variation in exposure to respirable (quartz) dust and of heterogeneity in dust characteristics for epidemiologic research in construction workers. Full-shift personal measurements (n = 67) from 34 construction workers were collected. The between-worker and day-to-day variances of quartz and respirable dust exposure were estimated using mixed models.

Dust control measures in the construction industry.

Quartz is a human carcinogen and a causative agent of silicosis. Exposure levels often exceed exposure limits in the construction industry. The need for effective control measures is high, but the complex structure of the construction industry, the variability in sources of exposure and the frequent changes of worksite makes it difficult to implement even simple and potentially effective control measures.

Determinants of exposure to respirable quartz dust in the construction industry.

Because most masonry building materials contain quartz and because these materials are subjected to a variety of treatments during the building process, quartz is encountered everywhere in building operations. The level of exposure to respirable quartz has been measured for some highly exposed groups of employees. At 30 construction sites personal air sampling (PAS) measurements of respirable dust and quartz have been performed and 171 samples have been taken.