Background and Objective: Exposure to formaldehyde has adverse effects on health both acutely and over the long term (e.g., carcinogenicity). The substance is widely used in pathology and histology departments. This study focused on cancer risk of formaldehyde in pathology department of five hospitals in Rasht. Materials and Methods: Sampling and determination of formaldehyde in pathology department were carried out based on the NIOSH method of 3500. The working condition and working environment were investigated and a semi quantitative risk assessment were used to health risk assessment of formaldehyde and The individual lifetime cancer probability, which is defined as the increase in the probability of developing cancer during continuous exposure to an air pollutant were used to assess health risks with formaldehyde. Results: The results showed that the exposure level of all subjects were higher than the Occupational Exposure Limit for 8 hours exposure time of formaldehyde. However, in the five occupational groups, the highest weekly exposure index was observed for the Lab Technicians (0.664 ppm) at Hospital no. 5, which could have been due to more daily working hours at this sampling site and a lack of adequate ventilation. The formaldehyde concentration was in the 0.0192 to 0.326 ppm ranges for five hospital pathology departments. The cancer risk ranged from 9.52×10-5 to 1.53×10-3 , and it was greater than the WHO acceptable cancer risk level.Conclusions: The results of the risk assessments can be used for managing the chemical exposure of allocated resources for defining control actions. This process plays an important role in reducing the level of exposure to formaldehyde in pathology departments.

Background: One of the challenges in construction is the occurrence of numerous accidents. In this regard, risk assessment can play an important role in reducing accidents. The aim of this study was to prepare comprehensive and quantitative checklists to determine the potential hazards in the construction phase. Materials and Methods: The present descriptive and analytical study was carried out on petrochemical projects in the south of Iran in 2014. After the inspection of more than 50 construction projects, two types of technical and managerial checklists were designed. The managerial and technical checklists were designed with seven and 32 major subjects, respectively. Finally prepared checklist and ET&BA method were compared in term of their risk identification capability. Results: The checklist and ET&BA methods, respectively, identified 300, 75, 125, and 48, and 107, 25, 12, and 0 risks related to hardware, design, mismanagement, and human error. Conclusions: The checklist method can identify and assess human errors, while the ET&BA method cannot. Moreover, this method was more efficient than the ET&BA technique in identification and assessment of hardware-related, design-related, and managerial risks. Moreover, the duration and cost of implementation of checklist method were significantly lower than ET&BA method. This technique can be introduced as a quantitative risk assessment method in construction phases of projects and its weaknesses can be improved by future studies.

Background: Today human resources are strategic parts of the organizations and are considered as intelligent and valuable assets. Human resources are the most valuable asset of organizations that face the major problem. Research has shown that working life and personal life have an interactive and exacerbate effect on each other. Based on the vast variety of harmful effects that endanger welders health it was tried to investigate the relationship between life quality and working life quality of contract welders in a shipbuilding factory in Bandar Anzali city. Methods: In this analytical descriptive cross–a sectional study carried in 2014, 100 contract welders in the shipbuilding industry in Bandar Anzali was selected with the systematic method, and participated as contract welders. Data were collected with reliable and validated questionnaires include demographic information, life quality questionnaire (SF-36), and Walton life quality questionnaire (1975). Data were analyzed using SPSS18 software by using the Pearson correlation test. Result: %84 of contract welders were very happy with their life quality, and %60 were satisfied with working life quality. There was a significant meaningful relationship between life quality and working life quality (P<= 0.00, r= 0.4). The overall living space variable from life quality had a significant meaningful relationship with life quality score changes (P <= 0.042, r= 0.342). There wasn’t any relationship between age, degree, and job experience with life quality and working life quality. But a single job or not having a second job had a significant meaningful relationship with life quality satisfaction and working life quality (P<= 0.023, r=0.262). Conclusion: This study showed that there was a relationship between life quality and working life quality. Therefore improvement in either of these two can improve the other one and also help the health promotion of welders.

BACKGROUND: Workplace inspections are applied to facilitate the adherence to the occupational health and safety regulations. The Iranian Ministry of Health introduced a new software system for tablets to inspect workplaces. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to take measurements of the usability, mental workload, and mood of inspectors. METHODS: Inspectors used both pen-and-paper and tablet methods to inspect the automotive industry in a mixed-method procedure. The NASA-TLX score, QUIS score, I-PANAS (SF) situation, inspection time, and number of errors were collected throughout the procedure. The differences were investigated using a paired sample and the Wilcoxon signed ranks test. RESULTS: In terms of efficacy, using the tablet resulted in lower error rates, but it took longer to complete the inspection task (P < 0.001). Participants perceived a lower workload when inspecting with a tablet rather than the traditional method. (Mental Demand: p < 0.002, Performance: p < 0.009, Effort: p < 0.012, TLX: p < 0.002 based on various subcomponents of NASA-TLX). The newly introduced system’s usability was insufficient. CONCLUSION: Although the use of tablets has improved safety inspections, ergonomic redesign of the system and consideration of a user-centered approach, as well as inspector training, can make the system more likely to succeed.

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