Els valors límit d'exposició professional i límits biològics per a agents químics en l'àmbit de treball, mesura i control. Evolució de la normativa sobre el plom i la seva incidència sobre els accidents laborals i malalties professionals en la indústria ceràmica

L'objectiu d'aquesta tesi és l'estudi dels valors límit d'exposició professional previstos en la normativa actual com a valors de referència per a l'avaluació i control dels riscos que comporta l'exposició a agents químics presents en el lloc de treball, fonamentalment per inhalació, per protegir la salut dels treballadors. No es pretén realitzar ni un estudi epidemiològic ni un estudi d'higiene, només s'utilitzen els valors d'exposició professional per analitzar el compliment de la normativa sobre la presència de plom en l'ambient de treball, i comprovar si el compliment de la normativa comporta la millora de la salut dels treballadors en funció de la millora de les concentracions de valors ambientals o biològics de l'exposició dels treballadors. La Directiva 98/24/CE deroga les Directives 80/1107/CEE sobre la protecció dels treballadors contra els riscos relacionats amb l'exposició a agents químics, físics i biològics durant el treball, i la Directiva 82/605/CEE, sobre la protecció dels treballadors contra riscos relacionats amb una exposició al plom metàl·lic i als seus compostos iònics durant el treball. S'analitza l'evolució de la normativa sobre la presència d'agents químics en l'ambient de treball, i en concret el plom, i la seva incidència en els accidents laborals i malalties professionals, i el compliment de la normativa al final d'un cicle marcat per l'entrada en vigor de la Directiva 98/24/CE. Per realitzar l'anàlisi anteriorment esmentada s'estudia la indústria ceràmica de les comarques gironines, de la construcció, de l'alimentació i decorativa, a través de les mesures de plom en l'ambient laboral i les mesures de plom en sang dels treballadors d'aquesta indústria des de 1991 a 1996.

Gestão da Prevenção nos Comboios de Portugal: Influência do Controlo de Risco do Comportamento Humano na Sinistralidade Profissional

Durante cinco anos, foi intervencionada e estudada, a sinistralidade laboral numa transportadora ferroviária. O controlo de riscos nela experimentado explorou o potencial preventivo de medidas de controlo do comportamento dos colaboradores, tais como: Formação para promover comportamentos preventivos; Intensificação da prevenção, controlo e recuperação do abuso de álcool e drogas; Informação motivadora para as boas práticas. Consequentemente: Inverteu-se rapidamente a tendência crescente da sinistralidade, sem aumentar custos; Mantiveram-se, durante um período de continuada redução do efectivo laboral, níveis de sinistralidade laboral inferiores aos verificados no início da pesquisa; Demonstrou-se a sustentabilidade financeira do investimento em Segurança e Saúde do Trabalho. During five years, an intervention, over the occupational accidents of a railway company, was studied. The control of risks that has been tested, explored the preventive potential of control measures towards employees’ behaviour, such as: Training to promote preventive behaviours; Stepping up prevention, control and recovery of alcohol and drugs abuse; Motivating information to good practices. Consequently: It quickly reversed the trend of accidents, without increasing the costs; During a period of continued reduction of employees, levels of occupational accidents remained below those recorded at the beginning of research; Financial sustainability of investment in Occupational Health and Safety was demonstrated.

Fatores de risco psicossociais no pessoal não docente

Na Europa, desperta-se para a consciencialização e estudo das origens das perturbações psicossociais, diferentemente do que se verifica em Portugal, que não possui nenhuma referência explícita na legislação ao conceito de fatores psicossociais no trabalho. Este estudo pretende colmatar a lacuna existente ao nível da identificação de fatores de risco psicossociais em pessoal não docente tendo como objetivos: identificar situações de risco profissional; caraterizar os efeitos dos riscos psicossociais laborais; identificar medidas preventivas para esses riscos e avaliar os fatores de risco psicossociais em pessoal não docente no distrito de Santarém. O estudo será exploratório e descritivo e a metodologia comporta a aplicação de um questionário de identificação de fatores de risco psicossociais adaptado do FPSICO – Escala de valoración de los riesgos psicosociales do INSHT de Espanha e entrevistas semi-estruturadas. Após a análise dos resultados, pretende-se contribuir para a diminuição das baixas médicas e, consequentemente, dos custos para as organizações e para o indivíduo exposto aos riscos psicossociais. - The awareness and study of psychosocial disturbances origins are increasing in Europe, differently to what happens in Portugal, which has no explicit reference in legislation to the concept of psychosocial factors at work. This study addresses the gap of psychosocial risk factors identification in non-teaching staff, with the following objectives: identify risk situations; characterize the effects of psychosocial risks at work; identify preventive measures for these risks; and evaluate the non-teaching staff psychosocial risk factors, in Santarém District. The study is exploratory and descriptive and the methodology involves the application of a psychosocial risk factors identification questionnaire adapted from FPSICO – Escala de valoración de los riesgos psicosociales of INSHT from Spain, and semi-structured interviews. The analysis of results aims contributing to the reduction of sick leave and, consequently, decreasing medical costs both to employers and to individuals exposed to psychosocial risks.

Understanding safety and production risks in rail engineering planning and protection

Much of the published human factors work on risk is to do with safety and within this is concerned with prediction and analysis of human error and with human reliability assessment. Less has been published on human factors contributions to understanding and managing project, business, engineering and other forms of risk and still less jointly assessing risk to do with broad issues of ‘safety’ and broad issues of ‘production’ or ‘performance’. This paper contains a general commentary on human factors and assessment of risk of various kinds, in the context of the aims of ergonomics and concerns about being too risk averse. The paper then describes a specific project, in rail engineering, where the notion of a human factors case has been employed to analyse engineering functions and related human factors issues. A human factors issues register for potential system disturbances has been developed, prior to a human factors risk assessment, which jointly covers safety and production (engineering delivery) concerns. The paper concludes with a commentary on the potential relevance of a resilience engineering perspective to understanding rail engineering systems risk. Design, planning and management of complex systems will increasingly have to address the issue of making trade-offs between safety and production, and ergonomics should be central to this. The paper addresses the relevant issues and does so in an under-published domain – rail systems engineering work.

Fatores De Riscos Psicossociais no Instituto Nacional de Emergência Médica-INEM: Delegações Centro e Sul

No âmbito do Mestrado em Gestão da Prevenção de Riscos Laborais, procede-se a uma investigação com vista à identificação dos Fatores de Riscos Psicossociais nos trabalhadores dos Serviços Administrativos e de Emergência das Delegações Centro e Sul do Instituto Nacional de Emergência Médica - INEM. Pretende-se colmatar essa lacuna visto que o INEM, até então, nunca efetuou nenhuma avaliação dos Fatores de Riscos Psicossociais, sendo que as investigações realizadas no instituto são relativas ao stresse ocupacional. A pesquisa exploratória e descritiva, com enfoque simultaneamente quantitativo e qualitativo, concretiza-se mediante a realização de entrevistas semiestruturadas às chefias de cada delegação e aplicação do questionário F-Psico versão 3.0 (Escala de Valoración de los riesgos psicosociales do Instituto Nacional de Seguridad e Higiene en el Trabajo – INSHT) aos trabalhadores dos serviços do Centro e do Sul do INEM. Participaram do estudo 185 trabalhadores, sendo 10% pertencentes à Delegação Centro e 14% pertencentes à Delegação Sul. Com os resultados obtidos pretende-se propor medidas preventivas, com vista a contribuir para a eliminação ou redução dos Riscos Psicossociais identificados. / Regarding the Masters Degree in Prevention of Labor Risk Management, an investigation aimed to identify the Psychosocial Risk Factors in the emergency and administrative workers in the Central and Southern Delegations of the National Institute of Medical Emergency. Aimed fill the gap because the National Institute of Medical Emergency, till then, never made any assessment of Psychosocial Risk Factors, and the investigations performed in the institute are related to occupational stress. The research which is simultaneously quantitative and qualitative, descriptive and exploratory will be will held bearing in mind the semi-structured interviews to the employers of each delegation and application of the Psychosocial Risk Factors identification questionnaire F-Psico 3.0 to the services workers of the central and southern delegations of de National Institute of Medical Emergency. The study included 185 workers, with 10% belonging to the Central Delegation and 14% belonging to the Southern Delegation. With the results we will propose preventive or corrective measures to eliminate or reduce the Psychosocial Risks identified.

Hearing hazards to firefighters

This paper examines the risks of occupational noise induced hearing loss in firefighters. OSHA and National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) guidelines are described and noise data collected from the Blue Island (Illinois) Fire Department is analyzed.

Occupational hearing conservation in a rural woodworking company

This paper discusses a study to evaluate noise exposure and hearing thresholds of workers in a small woodworking company in a rural area.

Movies as a source of non-occupational noise exposure

This paper examines the noise levels of movies and whether or not movie theater sound levels may be hazardous to audience members.

Relationships among audiological measurements, tinnitus measurements and self-reported hearing handicap in subjects with occupational hearing loss

This paper discusses a study of workman's compensation claims and relationships among audiological measures, tinnitus and self-reported hearing handicap.

Workers' compensation for occupational hearing loss: what we know or don't know

This papers looks at workers' compensation laws for each state to determine if there have been any updates in the laws since a 2000 survey by Dobie and Megerson. The study also examines what information is available to audiologists testing patients in workers' compensation claims.

Collaboration between infection control and occupational health in three continents: a success story with international impact

Globalization has been accompanied by the rapid spread of infectious diseases, and further strain on working conditions for health workers globally. Post-SARS, Canadian occupational health and infection control researchers got together to study how to better protect health workers, and found that training was indeed perceived as key to a positive safety culture. This led to developing information and communication technology (ICT) tools. The research conducted also showed the need for better workplace inspections, so a workplace audit tool was also developed to supplement worker questionnaires and the ICT. When invited to join Ecuadorean colleagues to promote occupational health and infection control, these tools were collectively adapted and improved, including face-to-face as well as on-line problem-based learning scenarios. The South African government then invited the team to work with local colleagues to improve occupational health and infection control, resulting in an improved web-based health information system to track incidents, exposures, and occupational injury and diseases. As the H1N1 pandemic struck, the online infection control course was adapted and translated into Spanish, as was a novel skill-building learning tool that permits health workers to practice selecting personal protective equipment. This tool was originally developed in collaboration with the countries from the Caribbean region and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). Research from these experiences led to strengthened focus on building capacity of health and safety committees, and new modules are thus being created, informed by that work. The products developed have been widely heralded as innovative and interactive, leading to their inclusion into “toolkits” used internationally. The tools used in Canada were substantially improved from the collaborative adaptation process for South and Central America and South Africa. This international collaboration between occupational health and infection control researchers led to the improvement of the research framework and development of tools, guidelines and information systems. Furthermore, the research and knowledge-transfer experience highlighted the value of partnership amongst Northern and Southern researchers in terms of sharing resources, experiences and knowledge.

Establishing a community of practice of researchers, practitioners, policy-makers and communities to sustainably manage environmental health risks in Ecuador

The Sustainably Managing Environmental Health Risk in Ecuador project was launched in 2004 as a partnership linking a large Canadian university with leading Cuban and Mexican institutes to strengthen the capacities of four Ecuadorian universities for leading community-based learning and research in areas as diverse as pesticide poisoning, dengue control, water and sanitation, and disaster preparedness. By 2009, train-the-trainer project initiation involved 27 participatory action research Master’s theses in 15 communities where 1200 community learners participated in the implementation of associated interventions. This led to establishment of innovative Ecuadorian-led master’s and doctoral programs, and a Population Health Observatory on Collective Health, Environment and Society for the Andean region based at the Universidad Andina Simon Bolivar. Building on this network, numerous initiatives were begun, such as an internationally funded research project to strengthen dengue control in the coastal community of Machala, and establishment of a local community eco-health centre focusing on determinants of health near Cuenca. Alliances of academic and non-academic partners from the South and North provide a promising orientation for learning together about ways of addressing negative trends of development. Assessing the impacts and sustainability of such processes, however, requires longer term monitoring of results and related challenges.