The initial impact of a workplace lead-poisoning prevention project.

Abstract

The California Department of Health Services began an occupational lead poisoning prevention project in cooperation with 275 radiator service companies. The agency developed and marketed resources to facilitate companies' own efforts, tracked the progress of each company, and urged the companies to conduct blood lead testing. Testing by participating employers increased from 9% to 95%, and 10 times as many companies with likely overexposures were identified as had been reported to the state's lead registry in the previous year. The success of this project indicates that the model should be applied more extensively.

Lead exposure in mexican radiator repair workers

“…Among the most important limitations in our study were its cross-sectional design and sample size of only 73 RRWs. Only Bellows and Rudolph [1993] had a much larger sample size (n 273) compared to ours; however, they made no attempt to quantify predictors of lead exposure or blood lead levels in the families. Another limitation is that our study provided only one exposure data point for each subject.…”

“…Compared to other studies summarized in Table VI the blood lead levels among Mexican RRWs appear similar over all to those observed in US RRWs. Bellows and Rudolph [1993] felt that lower blood lead levels in California RRWs compared to other geographical locations studied in the US may be a result of good natural ventilation as the climate in Los Angeles County was favorable enough to leave doors and windows open. This may be true for Mexico as well, although the effect may be offset by higher background environmental lead levels from the known, albeit declining, combustion of leaded gasoline in Mexico.…”

“…In the mid-to late 1980s, radiator repair in the US was identi®ed as an occupation associated with high lead exposure and blood lead levels in radiator repair workers (RRWs) [Goldman et al, 1987]. Subsequent studies have con®rmed these ®ndings [Lussenhop et al, 1989;Maizlish et al, 1990;Bellows and Rudolph, 1993;Nunez et al, 1993;Dalton et al, 1997] and demonstrated that many RRWs have blood leads in excess of the US OSHA standard of 40 mg/dl. Blood lead levels of this magnitude place RRWs at increased risk for the adverse health effects of lead.…”

“…Through their early reporting programs, radiator repair was identi®ed as the highest risk lead exposure occupation compared to all others in the state. A special effort to encourage shop participation in a surveillance program was launched and is felt to have been successful [Bellows and Rudolph, 1993].…”

Preventing Lead Poisoning

“…Entrepreneurial occupational health nurses could serve as a centralized resource agent similar to the project advisory committee described by Bellows (1993). They could survey at risk industries, advise employers about engineering or administrative adjustments which would decrease their risk of lead poisoning, and develop and implement lead poisoning prevention programs tailored to their special needs.…”