Occupational health risk assessment of the benzene exposure industries: a comprehensive scoring method through 4 health risk assessment models

• Published in: Environmental science and pollution research international 2022-12, Vol.29 (56), p.84300-84311
• Main Authors: Zhang, Ludi, Sun, Peng, Sun, Dawei, Zhou, Yanhua, Han, Lei, Zhang, Hengdong, Zhu, Baoli, Wang, Boshen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Aquatic Pollution; Atmospheric Protection/Air Quality Control/Air Pollution; Benzene; Blood; Blood levels; Carcinogens; Earth and Environmental Science; Ecotoxicology; Environment; Environmental Chemistry; Environmental Health; Environmental science; Exposure; Health hazards; Health risk assessment; Health risks; Hydrocarbons; Manufacturing; Manufacturing industry; Metals; Occupational exposure; Occupational hazards; Occupational health; Petroleum industry; Pharmaceutical industry; Principal components analysis; Processing industry; Research Article; Risk analysis; Risk assessment; Waste Water Technology; Water Management; Water Pollution Control; Wood; Wood products; Working conditions
• ISSN: 0944-1344; 1614-7499
• DOI: 10.1007/s11356-022-21275-x

Benzene is one of the most common occupational hazards in the working environment which was in the list of group 1 carcinogens. This study applied four occupational health risk assessment models: EPA model; MOM model of Singapore; the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) model, and the Technical guide WS/T 777–2021 of China. The models assessed both non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic effects of benzene for 1629 employees in 50 factories in Jiangsu Province (China) who were exposed to benzene in the working environment and analysis the risk between industries by principal component analysis (PCA) method. The highest occupational health hazard of benzene among the five industries is petroleum processing industry, then followed by chemical products manufacturing industry, special equipment manufacturing industry, wood processing and products industry, and at last the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry. The population of abnormal routine blood parameters in the subjects was mostly in the “wood products industry” group, and the concentration of benzene in “wood products industry” group is the lowest in 5 groups. The industries with low exposure concentration have higher blood abnormality rates; this may be caused by the fact that blood damage is more secretive under low occupational health risk.