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Occupational Environment: and Health

This document discusses occupational health and disease. It covers three topics: the occupational environment, occupational medicine practices, and diseases associated with occupational exposures. For occupational medicine practices, it describes three levels of prevention - primary, secondary, and tertiary. It also discusses principles for early detection of occupational diseases, including health monitoring, industrial hygiene criteria, and health surveillance of exposed workers. For diagnosing occupational diseases, it recommends considering a worker's exposure history, workplace hazards, clinical presentation, and laboratory analyses.

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63 views32 pages

Occupational Environment: and Health

This document discusses occupational health and disease. It covers three topics: the occupational environment, occupational medicine practices, and diseases associated with occupational exposures. For occupational medicine practices, it describes three levels of prevention - primary, secondary, and tertiary. It also discusses principles for early detection of occupational diseases, including health monitoring, industrial hygiene criteria, and health surveillance of exposed workers. For diagnosing occupational diseases, it recommends considering a worker's exposure history, workplace hazards, clinical presentation, and laboratory analyses.

Uploaded by

api-19916399
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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You are on page 1/ 32

Occupational

Environment and Health

Teacher: Zhang Qiao


Department of Toxicology
College of Public Health
Zhengzhou University
19. 10. 2006
Part 1. Occupational Environment
Part 2. Practice of Occupational Medicine
Part 3. Disease Associated with
Exposure to Occupational factors
Part 2. Practice of Occupational Medicine

1. Preventive work
2. Principles of Early
Detection of Occupational
Disease
3. Diagnosis of Occupational
diseases
Section 1 Three Levels of
Prevention

 Primary Prevention
 Secondary prevention
 Tertiary prevention
Primary Prevention

refers to the prevention from


disease cause.

That means eliminating


occupational hazards radically
,or making every efforts to
reduce the exposure level to
occupational hazards.
After the recognition and
evaluation of problem, the
occupational health work
focuses on the control of
workplace health hazards,
which involves the elements of
education, administration, and
engineering.
For example:
• education
• improvement of technique
• replacement of toxicant
• Ventilation
• use of personal protective
equipment
• Finding out high risk persons
before employment
Secondary Prevention
 or pre-clinical prevention,
refers to the prevention in the
very early stage of occupational
disease.
That means:detection,
diagnosis and treatment of
occupational diseases in the
early stage of the diseases.
Secondary Prevention

 Early detection of occupational diseases


 Early diagnosis of occupational diseases
 Early treatment of occupational diseases
Tertiary Prevention

refers to the prevention in the


clinical stage of occupational
disease.

That means the treatment for


patients of occupational injuries
and
occupational disorders.
Tertiary Prevention
 Correct diagnosis
 Stop to exposure
 Treatment in time
 Preventing the complication
 Promoting the recovery
Section 2 Principles of early
detection of occupational disease

 Detection of occupational disease


is very important for treatment .
 The health impairment may be
distinguished by following fields:
Ⅰ. Biochemical and
morphological changes.
The changes can be measured by
laboratory analysis.
 Changes in the activities of various serum
enzymes
 Changes in the concentrations of the
components of body fluids
 chromosomal aberrations
Ⅱ. Changes in the physical state
and function of body systems
They can be evaluated by physical
examination and by means of
laboratory examination.

 ECG ( electrocardiograms )
 Tests of physical working capacity
 Tests of higher nervous function
Ⅲ. Changes in general wellbeing
They can be evaluated by medical
history and by the use of
questionnaires.

 Drowsiness
 Irritation of mucosa following exposure to
organic solvents
How to do if we want to detect

occupational disease early?


We can do this
by following
methods:
The concentration of harmful
chemicals at workplace air
environment should be monitored
often in order to know whether the
concentration has been beyond
the criteria or not . The aim is to
find and dynamic handle hazards
factors of potential health
impairment at workplace
environment.
Industrial Hygiene Criteria of

China

 OEL:
MAC Occupational
(Maximum Exposure
Allowable
Limit
Concentration).
 PC-TWA (Permissible Concentration-time
Weighted Average).
 PC-STEL (Permissible Concentration-short
Term Exposure Limit).
Apart from chemical health
hazards, also the working
environment contains a wide
variety of physical hazards (noise,
radiofrequency radiation),
biological, and psychosocial
hazards.
2. Health surveillance for people
exposed to harmful substances

 2.1. Preplacement health


examination

 2.2. Periodic health examination


2.1. Preplacement health
examination
 Preplacement health examination can provide
baseline data of health state of employee.
 The design of which varies with different
occupations, often it contains a questionnaire
on past medical, occupational, and social
history.
 Someone who is ill with a disease could not
be adapt to some occupations.
For example: If a person’s white blood
cells or leukocytes reduced, he (she)
can not be adapt to work at the
environment exposed to benzene.
2.2. Periodic health examination

 Periodic health examination should be


carried out at regular intervals after
workers have worked for a period.

 The examination can be carried out one or


two times every one or half year.
The aim of

Periodic health examination:

(1.) Finding patients of occupational


disease at earlier period
(2.) Treating the patients at early time
Section 3 Approach to the
Diagnosis of Occupational Disease

Diagnosis of occupational diseases is


very complex. If someone was ill with
respiratory infections, maybe you could
think that he was ill with silicosis , But
also he like smoking. You must
consider many factors about diseases so
that you can have a correct diagnosis.
Section 3 Approach to the
Diagnosis of Occupational Disease

The approach including 4 hands:


 Ⅰ. Exposure Survey of Occupation
 Ⅱ. Investigation of Labor Hygiene
 Ⅲ. Clinical signs and symptoms
 Ⅳ. Analysis at laboratory
Ⅰ. Exposure Survey of Occupation
Namely knowing the occupational
exposure history

（ 1 ） Exposure Survey
（ 2 ） Work History
（ 3 ） Environmental History
Ⅱ. Investigation of Labor Hygiene

A. Identification of occupational hazard


factors (toxic chemicals , noise, etc. ).
B. Knowing the mortality of occupational
diseases at the same workplace.
C. Determination of level on the
occupational hazard factors.
eg. If it is a chemical factor, it should not
be over the exposure limit
Ⅲ. Clinical signs and symptoms

Physicians should give the patients


carefully examination and know
environmental and medical history.
Ⅳ. Analysis at laboratory
⑴ Level of toxin in biological
materials
⑵ Changes of biochemical and
morphology
⑶ Changes of pathology in workers
exposed to toxin
After you have considered all of
above 4 hands, you can diagnose
occupational diseases.

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