Abstract
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.
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Data availability
No data are available. Internal data used in this protocol are highly sensitive and confidential and only accessible to approved personnel. Linked data are kept securely by Jiangsu CDC. Researchers interested in collaborations or further information are invited to contact the corresponding author.
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Acknowledgements
We thank the research subjects, the 1629 benzene exposed workers, for their active participation and the strong support of Jiangsu Center for disease prevention and control, as well as the teachers and students who provide help for the data processing of this paper. Finally, I would also like to thank Jiangsu Science and education strong health innovation team for its funding.
Funding
This study was mainly supported by Jiangsu Province’s Outstanding Medical Academic Leader program (CXTDA2017029).
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LZ: methodology, software, investigation, writing—review and editing. PS: methodology, software, formal analysis, investigation. HZ, LH, DS, YZ, BZ, BW: resources, writing—review and editing, supervision.
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In abiding with the ethical requirements, the study conformed to the Declaration of Helsinki and was nominated to be exempted from institutional ethical review by the Research Ethics Board of Jiangsu Provincial CDC. Official permission was taken from each respondent for this study, and informed consent was obtained from all participants.
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Zhang, L., Sun, P., Sun, D. et al. Occupational health risk assessment of the benzene exposure industries: a comprehensive scoring method through 4 health risk assessment models. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 84300–84311 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-21275-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-21275-x