A Study On Application And Modification Of Three Occupational Health Risk Assessment Models

Objective:To compare the applicability of three kinds foreign occupational health risk assessment methods and the improved Singapore risk assessment model in different types of industry,and to provide the basis for the reasonable use of the occupational health risk assessment model in other studies.Methods:American EPA inhalation risk model,Singapore semi-quantitative risk assessment model of occupational exposure to chemical substances and Australian Occupational Health and Safety Risk Assessment model,were conducted to assess the occupational health risk in small electroplating and furniture manufacturing industry from a coastal city of Zhejiang province.According to the technical requirements from the laws on occupational illness prevention and control and the regulations of occupation departments in China,the exposure level in the Singapore risk assessment model was improved and also applied in this study.Risk ratio had been used to compare the results of different methods.Results : The results of American EPA model showed that the workers in electroplating industry who engaged in chrome and pickling jobs had very high risk of non-carcinogens,and who exposed tochromium(VI)oxide had high risk of lung cancer.In wooden furniture industry,the workers who engaged in preparation,splicing,assembly,painting and grinding jobs and exposed to benzene and methylbenzene had low risk of carcinogens,and who exposed to benzene and xylene had very high risk of non-carcinogens.According to Singapore semi-quantitative risk assessment model,the works all had medium and high risk in electroplating industry,and there were low and medium health risk caused by toluene and xylene,and high risk caused by wood dust in preparation and polishing jobs in wooden furniture industry.Similar to the results of other models,Australia qualitative risk assessment model showed that the works all had medium and high risk in electroplating industry,and there was medium health risk caused by toluene and xylene,and high risk caused by benzene,wood dust and noise in wooden furniture industry.The risk ratios of the three methods were higher than the toxic work classification ratio(P<0.01).The risk ratio of the improved Singapore model were higher than that before the improvement,and the difference was no statistically significant in electroplating industry and statistically significant in wooden furniture industry(t=-3.828,P<0.01).Conclusion:The American EPA,Singapore and Australia risk assessment methods can be applied to practice of the occupational health risk assessment in furniture manufacturing enterprises.,and the combined application of multiple risk assessment methods can be used as one of the risk assessment strategies.The improved Singapore risk model in line with China’s national conditions...