A SARS-CoV-2 outbreak investigation at a storage and distribution centre in England: an assessment of worker- and workplace-related risk factors.

An outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 (1 March to 10 May 2021) with an attack rate of 26.5% among approximately 1150 workers at a storage and distribution centre in England prompted a multidisciplinary outbreak investigation (5 May to 6 August 2021), with the aim of better understanding worker- and workplace-related risk factors for viral transmission in the warehousing sector. Overall, environmental factors (e.

The use of bio-monitoring to assess exposure in the electroplating industry.

Workers in the electroplating industry are potentially exposed to a range of hazardous substances including nickel and hexavalent chromium (chromium VI) compounds. These can cause serious health effects, including cancer, asthma and dermatitis. This research aimed to investigate whether repeat biological monitoring (BM) over time could drive sustainable improvements in exposure control in the industry.

Airborne emissions of carcinogens and respiratory sensitizers during thermal processing of plastics.

Objectives: Thermoplastics may contain a wide range of additives and free monomers, which themselves may be hazardous substances. Laboratory studies have shown that the thermal decomposition products of common plastics can include a number of carcinogens and respiratory sensitizers, but very little information exists on the airborne contaminants generated during actual industrial processing. The aim of this work was to identify airborne emissions during thermal processing of plastics in real-life, practical applications.

MDHS 25 revisited: part 2, modified sampling and analytical procedures applied to HDI-based isocyanates.

The method that is probably the most commonly used worldwide for the determination of total organic isocyanates (NCO) in air is the Health and Safety Executive method, MDHS 25/3, Organic Isocyanates in Air, and its variants. This paper summarizes some of the research and development work carried out by Health and Safety Laboratory on this method since its publication in 1999 with the eventual aim of incorporating this work in an updated version of MDHS 25 (i.e.

Determination of dithiocarbamate pesticides in occupational hygiene sampling devices using the isooctane method and comparison with an automatic thermal desorption (ATD) method.

Two new methods for the determination of dithiocarbamate pesticides in occupational hygiene sampling devices are described. Dithiocarbamate spiked occupational hygiene sampling devices, consisting of glass fibre (GF/A) filters, cotton pads, cotton gloves and disposable overalls, were reduced under acidic conditions and the CS2 evolved as a decomposition product was extracted into isooctane. The isooctane was then analysed using gas chromatography with mass spectrometry, for CS2, which provided a quantitative result for dithiocarbamates.