Abstract
Objective This study was designed to comprehensively evaluate workers’ potential health risks of exposure to 39 air toxics in the Ta-sher Petrochemical Complex. Methods: Open-Path Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (OP-FTIR) was used to measure concentrations of air toxics. We used the measured worksite concentrations between 1997 and 1999 at 11 companies in the petrochemical complex, employing 3,100 on-site workers. The 39 measured air toxics included 10 chemicals with acute reference exposure levels (RELa), 19 chemicals with chronic reference exposure levels (RELc), and 3 chemicals classified as Class 1 or 2A human carcinogens by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). We then used RELa to calculate the hazard index of acute health effects (HI A ) for workers in individual plants. We also calculated the hazard index of chronic health effects (HIc) and cancer risks for all workers in the entire petrochemical complex. Results: Workers in five companies had HI A greater than 1 because of toluene, benzene, methyl ethyl ketone, chloroform and isopropanol exposures. Workers in this petrochemical complex had HIc greater than 1 because of acrylonitrile, 1,3-butadiene, hydrogen cyanide, and n,n-dimethylformamide exposures. Risk of hematopoietic system cancer because of benzene and ethylene oxide exposure, and respiratory system cancer because of 1,3-butadiene exposure was estimated to be 3.1–6.1×10−4 and 5.2–7.1×10−4, respectively. Conclusions: Our findings indicated that workers in the petrochemical complex might have excess cancer and noncancer risks due to acute or chronic exposures to air toxics from multiple emission sources.
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Acknowledgements
This study was supported by a grant from Taiwan Environmental Protection Agency (EPA-88-FA32-03-1001). We also want to thank the reviewers for their specific comments.
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Chan, CC., Shie, RH., Chang, TY. et al. Workers’ exposures and potential health risks to air toxics in a petrochemical complex assessed by improved methodology. Int Arch Occup Environ Health 79, 135–142 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00420-005-0028-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00420-005-0028-9