Methodical approaches to assessing individual occupaitonl health risk caused by work-related diseases during the whole employment period

Abstract

An increase in retirement age means that employment period is prolonged; it calls for preserving people’s working capacities for a longer period of time including those with long-term working experience. It is especially vital when it comes to adverse working conditions that might cause high health risks for workers due to work-related diseases. We suggested methodical approaches to determining individual occupational health risks; these approaches took into account occupationally induced negative responses to impacts exerted by work-related factors; pathogenetic mechanisms of health disorders occurrence; gravity of health disorders; workers’ age and working experience. To implement these approaches, we applied a set of procedures that included hygienic and epidemiologic analysis, clinical and laboratory examination of workers, mathematic modeling and prediction. We tested these approaches via assessing occupational health risks for workers employed at oil-extracting enterprises and it allowed us to determine parameters of dependence between changes in arterial hypertension predictors under exposure to occupational noise and changes in age and working experience (b0=0.1427; b1=0.007; b2=-0.372). The obtained parameters can be used in assessing risks of arterial hypertension occurrence due to exposure to occupational noise for workers employed in oil extraction. Individual occupational risk caused by arterial hypertension in people exposed to occupational noise was higher than its permissible level (1∙10-3) for 13% workers (33 people) aged from 41 to 52 and working experience from 19.8 to 33 years; the risk detected in our research amounted up to 2.4∙10-2. Maximum individual risks of work-related arterial hypertension that are predicted to occur at an age close to 59 years amount up to 4.3∙10-2 and they will be higher than permissible levels for 56.6% работников; at an age close to 65 years, up to 4.7∙10-2, and they will be higher than permissible levels for 64.8% workers.