The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has found DWAs not comparable to the lapel sampling method used by OSHA to determine compliance with its permissible exposure limit (PEL) or other 8-hr occupational exposure limits (OELs) (Donaldson and Stringer 1976).
A previous study (Mannino et al. 1995) in adults known to be occupationally exposed to gasoline fumes and automotive exhaust found substantially higher correlations in nonsmokers between personal air measurements (5 8 hr integrated occupational samples) and blood concentrations for several VOCs (ethylbenzene, R = 0.82; toluene, R = 0.88; m-/ p-xylenes, R = 0.94; o-xylene, R = 0.90).
In fact, previous investigations of boilermakers found that 4-hr mean occupational exposures to PM2.5 (particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter ≤ 2.5 μm) are associated with changes in short-duration HRV, 5 min SDNN (Magari et al. 2001).
For instance, in Dutch adults, significantly increased hazard ratios (HRs) for occupational, home and sports injuries (registered as one group) in lower educational strata were reduced but remained statistically significant after adjustment for excessive alcohol consumption and other factors.
This suggests that higher grade professionals had a higher HR than the other occupational groups in the stratified analyses because of their underlying low risk of disability pension.
Adjustment for education and occupational class (HRs given in Table 1) did not materially modify the results.
In our previous investigation among boilermakers, we observed no association between 8 10-hr workday SDNNi and occupational PM2.5 exposures (Magari et al. 2002).
The occupation categorisation was modified following the assessment of its unadjusted relationship with medical release, keeping FS and OPS Support, which had elevated HRs, but aggregating other occupational categories, which did not.
If the bullying persists, identify whether your organisation has a grievance policy and report the problem to a relevant individual eg union representative, HR manager, line manager or occupational health adviser.
Inhaled concentrations of 2 5 ppm for 4 hr, well below the current occupational standard, cause detectable toxicity (West et al. 2001).
Workers with sickness absence due to psychiatric disorder had an increased risk of all-cause mortality (hazard ratio (HR) adjusted for age, gender, occupational grade, and sickness absence due to other diagnoses = 1.70, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.38, 2.08).
