Objective:
This study aimed to investigate respiratory disorders associated with exposure to low concentrations of ammonia.
Method:
This cohort study was conducted on 122 industrial workers. Data gathering were based on the officially registered data, the NMAM 6016 and the American Thoracic Society and European Respiratory Society protocols.
Results:
The prevalence rate of respiratory disorders significantly increased in the exposure group over 5 years (P < 0.05). The frequencies of these symptoms in the exposure group were significantly higher than non-exposure group (P < 0.05). Respiratory functions were decrease significantly in the exposure group and were lower than non-exposure group (P < 0.05). Exposure and the amount of exposure to ammonia had a significant relationship with respiratory disorders and respiratory functions (P < 0.05).
Conclusion:
Exposure to ammonia lower than threshold limit value (TLV), can act as a risk factor of respiratory disorders.
Ammonia is a toxic compound and has many toxic effects on humans and the environment. This study was designed to model the consequences of ammonia leakage in an industrial slaughterhouse. Given the potential hazard of ammonia, only the toxic dimension of this gas was evaluated. The scenarios were evaluated in the worst possible condition and in the case of the complete rupture. Findings showed that in case of a catastrophic rupture scenario in reservoir 1 in the first and second 6 months of the year, the distances of 920.37 and 569.38 m from the reservoir in the wind direction were at Emergency Response Planning Guidelines, level 3 (ERPG3), respectively. In reservoir 2, in the first and second 6 months of the year, the distances of 699.58 and 384.86 m from the reservoir were at the ERPG3 level, respectively. In reservoir 3, in the first and second 6 months of the year, the distances of 203.48 and 748.28 m from the reservoir were at the ERPG3 level, respectively. Examination of the probit values showed that in reservoirs 1 and 2, the probit values were more than 4.28 up to 100 m from the reservoirs, and in the reservoir 3, the mortality rates were lower. The findings revealed that the catastrophic rupture of ammonia reservoirs in the studied slaughterhouse and the release of ammonia could lead to the fatality of large numbers of people in ERPG2 and ERPG3 areas. Therefore, it is necessary to take control measures to reduce the vulnerability against such accidents.
Introduction: Many organizational, social, and personal factors can affect safety performance of employees. Personal commitment to safety is another factor in this regard to which has been paid less attention in previous studies. The main objective of the present study is to investigate the role of this factor in shaping safety performance of employees. Materials & Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted among 302 workers from several small manufacturing industries in several provinces located in the center of Iran. Data were collected using a researcher-made questionnaire. In order to determine the role of personal commitment to safety, several hypotheses were defined. According to them, personal commitment to safety can mediate the effect of organizational factors on safety performance. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed for examining the hypotheses. Results: The model demonstrated that personal commitment to safety has significant direct effect on safety performance. Management commitment to safety is the main factor affecting personal commitment to safety (P<0.01, path coefficient= 0.257). Supportive environment was another important factor in this regard (P<0.01, path coefficient= 0.175). In contrast, safety training had no significant effect on personal commitment to safety (P=0.328), demonstrating its poor designing. Conclusion: Personal commitment to safety can be promoted by improving organization and social factors, such as management commitment to safety and supportive environment, which in turn would result in improvement of safety performance.
BACKGROUND: Finding the best practices for accident prevention is possible by identifying the influential factors affecting accident occurrence and their interactions as well as implementing corrective actions for the root cause factors. OBJECTIVE: This study was aimed to determine the cause-effect relationships and the interaction of the influential factors affecting accident occurrence and determine the critical root factors. METHODS: This study was carried out based on the opinions of a panel of experts and used the fuzzy DEMATEL method. RESULTS: The results showed that “organization safety attitude”, “safety communication”, “work and safety training” and “safe design of systems” are root cause variables, Also, “work and safety knowledge” and “experience in the job “ are individual cause variables. CONCLUSIONS: Organizational factors and some of individual variables are the critical factors that affect the occurrence of accidents. Therefore, corrective actions for accident prevention should primarily focus on the correction of these variables.
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