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Exposure of chemical mixtures at work and their application to the prevention of occupational disease

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Abstract

Objective and methods

This report is intended to present a comprehensive review of the scientific evaluation of mixture exposure and risk assessment at work, in order to prevent occupational disease. The report summarizes the literature review that was undertaken by searching the major websites used in most reviews for the necessary data, addresses worker safety and discusses the future perspectives of occupational health issues from chemical mixtures.

Results and conclusion

Many workers are known to be potentially exposed to complex mixtures with high exposure levels, with the potential for toxic damage from those chemical mixtures. Although many chemicals are regulated, the exposure to occupational mixtures can cause significant health problems, such exposure is still very present in the working environment and worker exposure to this mixture still presents a threat to occupational health. However, the future of mixture research is very bright, as not only are efforts being made to find more than just the combining of chemicals, interactions are being predicted between chemicals and non-chemical factors targeting adverse outcome pathways, based on the latest understanding of biological systems. Much progress has been made in predicting the concomitant effects using the concept of mixed chemicals and more sophisticated big data analysis methods as well as tools that can be used to test hypotheses such as in vitro, in silico and alternatives to animal testing. Since the information to be utilized is also available, exposure information with a high-throughput can be suggested, which will help to detect related diseases.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the Korean Occupational Safety and Health Agency (Ulsan, Republic of Korea), the Ministry of Employment and Labor (Sejong, Republic of Korea) and a Grant-in-Aid for chemical hazard evaluation (2020).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chemicals Research Bureau, Occupational Safety and Health Research Institute, Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency, Daejeon, Korea

    Kyung-Taek Rim

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Correspondence to Kyung-Taek Rim.

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Kyung-Taek Rim declares that he has no conflicts of interest.

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This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

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Rim, KT. Exposure of chemical mixtures at work and their application to the prevention of occupational disease. Toxicol. Environ. Health Sci. 13, 91–99 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13530-021-00087-5

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