133 Elevating worker health: safeguarding against reprotoxic substances exposure

Abstract

The environmental contributors to reproductive health begin in utero and include the social, physical and nutritional environment, and physical and chemical agents. In the past 70 years, there has been a dramatic increase in human exposure to both natural and synthetic chemicals. Endocrine disruptors are chemicals that may interfere with the hormonal system and thereby produce harmful effects in both humans and wildlife. Under the European REACH regulation, endocrine disruptors are identified as substances of very high concern alongside chemicals known to cause cancer, mutations and toxicity to reproduction. Similarly to carcinogens or mutagens, reprotoxic substances may have serious and irreversible effects also on workers’ health. Therefore, occupational exposure to reprotoxic substances should also be regulated under the same directive on the protection of workers from carcinogens or mutagens at work (Directive 2004/37/EC). Occupational exposure limit values have been set for 12 widely used substances in the new directive 2022/431/EC, and therefore validated exposure assessment methods should be made available. The health surveillance is requested for workers exposed to these substances, that is the assessment of the health status of an individual worker based on exposure to specific substances during work. Therefore, cooperation with obstetrician, gynaecologist and other reproductive health professionals is needed, for the assessment of male and female fertility status. On the other side clinicians should always ask women of childbearing age about occupational exposures as legal exposure limits for most workplace chemicals are not designed to protect against harm to a pregnancy or the developing fetus.