Journal of Occupational Health最新文献

Background: Occupational health and safety management systems (OHSMS) are the foundation of occupational health and safety activities within an organization. An important element of these systems is audits. However, OHSMS auditors often lack confidence in conducting occupational health audits compared with their proficiency in conducting occupational safety audits. For occupational health to be effectively managed by OHSMS, the sampling competence of auditors engaged in third-party audits should be improved. Therefore, we conducted this study to identify appropriate sampling targets for occupational health related to International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 45001.

Methods: We adopted a mixed methods approach to identify appropriate sampling targets. This involved conducting focus group discussions with experts in occupational health and performing systematic text condensation analysis. The validity of our findings was further reinforced through confirmation by external auditors who specialize in ISO 45001.

Results: In the qualitative phase, 6 occupational health sampling targets were identified, and of these, 5 were subsequently validated in the quantitative phase: (1) Health issues, legal requirements, and occupational health goals identified by the organization; (2) Occupational health risk assessment and control processes; (3) Processes related to occupational health and documented information showing the results of efforts; (4) Organizational roles and functions of occupational health professionals and opportunities for their professional development; and (5) Processes to ensure commitment to occupational health issues and objectives.

Conclusion: To ensure effective and comprehensive occupational health audits, auditors should review these targets. This study will enhance the competence of auditors by identifying appropriate occupational health sampling targets.

Objectives: This study investigated the effects of hot and cold temperature on the renal function of people with chronic diseases, such as diabetes, hypertension, and chronic kidney disease, using large-scale clinical data.

Methods: We used retrospective cohort data from the Clinical Data Warehouse of the Seoul St Mary's Hospital, which contains clinical, diagnostic, laboratory, and other information about all patients who have visited the hospital since 1997. We obtained climate data from the Automated Synoptic Observing System of the Korea Meteorological Administration. The heat index was used as a measuring tool to evaluate heat exposure by indexing the actual heat that individuals feel according to temperature and humidity. The estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) was calculated using the Chronic Kidney Disease Epidemiology Collaboration equation. To investigate changes in renal function trends with heat index, this study used generalized additive mixed models.

Results: Renal function decreased linearly with increasing heat index after approximately 25°C, which was considered the flexion point of temperature. A linear decrease in the eGFR was observed with the effects of 0 to 5 lag days. Although there was a correlation observed between the decrease in eGFR and temperatures below -10°C, the results did not indicate statistical significance.

Conclusions: The results of our study provide scientific evidence that high temperatures affect the renal function of people with chronic diseases. These results can help prevent heat-related morbidity by identifying those who are more likely to develop renal disease and experience worsening renal function.

Objective: A hierarchical cluster analysis for the cardboard manufacturing industry was developed with the aim of identifying similarities between workstations in terms of musculoskeletal stress factors (MSFs) and their impact on workers' bodies.

Methods: The hierarchical clustering analysis was conducted using data from 44 workstations, which included 6 body part divisions and 51 stress factors as variables with 36 answer options. Firstly, the content of the dataset was defined. Secondly, the data were agglomerated and classified into 3 clusters using Ward's method based on the presence or absence of stress factors. Finally, the multivariable matrix was reduced to 2 factors: the x-axis representing the risk level of the workstation, and the y-axis representing the impact on the workers' health.

Results: The study found that workers' knees were the most affected body parts, with 47 cases. The resulting work-related musculoskeletal disorders included tendinitis, arthralgia, chondromalacia, and gonarthrosis. The MSF with the most significant impact on the body's health was fatiguing work that involves repeated jumps, prolonged squatting, or kneeling, present in cluster 1 and cluster 3. Moreover, two of the most common MSFs associated with repeated work positions were identified: a mild forward flexion of the back (63 cases) in combination with one leg being used more often to support the body (56 cases).

Conclusions: It was possible to identify the main work-related musculoskeletal disorders and the associated stress factors for the cardboard manufacturing industry by using hierarchical cluster classification and analysis, enabling the classification of risk levels and the impact on body health for each workstation.

Objectives: Whether the known positive association between blood lead (PbB) levels and urinary δ-aminolevulinic acid (ALAU) also exists at relatively low PbB levels (<40 μg/dL) remains unclear. We aimed to investigate this association at lower PbB levels.

Methods: We analyzed data from biannual medical examinations of workers at a Japanese factory from August 2013 to August 2023. We excluded records from female workers and those with missing data, resulting in a dataset consisting of 1396 records from 155 male workers. We employed mixed-effect linear regression models with a random intercept for workers and additional adjustments for age and smoking status.

Results: The median PbB level across all the analyzed records was 8 μg/dL (range: 1-31 μg/dL). Significant positive associations were observed between PbB and ALAU, with a 1-unit increase in natural logarithm-transformed PbB corresponding to a 10.0% increase in ALAU (95% CI, 2.7%-17.9%). Categorized PbB analyses showed a 23.8% increase in ALAU (95% CI, 2.7%-49.2%) for PbB levels at 20-24 μg/dL and an 83.1% increase (95% CI, 30.1%-157.7%) for PbB levels ≥25 μg/dL, compared with those <5 μg/dL. The exposure-response curve analysis indicated a plateau followed by an increasing trend.

Conclusions: A positive and nonlinear association between PbB and ALAU levels was observed at relatively low PbB levels.

Objective: We aimed to develop a reliable gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) method for detecting urinary benzyl alcohol (BeOH) concentrations and assess the suitability of urinary BeOH as a biomarker for occupational BeOH exposure.

Methods: Thirteen male participants exposed to BeOH during paint-stripping work provided preshift and postshift urine samples, and their personal exposure concentrations were measured. Meanwhile, a control group of 10 nonexposed workers contributed urine samples. The newly developed GC-MS method met regulatory guidelines.

Results: The personal exposure concentrations of BeOH ranged from 8.4 to 45.2 mg/m3. Postshift urine samples from exposed participants showed significant BeOH and hippuric acid (HA) concentration increases compared with preshift samples (BeOH, post-/pre-shift geometric mean [GM] ratio = 7.5-7.8, P < .001; HA, post-/pre-shift GM ratio = 4.3-4.5, P < .001). These levels were considerably higher than those in postshift samples from the nonexposed control group (BeOH, exposed-/nonexposed-workers GM ratio = 14.8-19.0, P < .001; HA, exposed-/nonexposed-workers GM ratio = 12.1-15.3, P < .001), even after urine density correction.

Conclusions: Urinary BeOH and HA can serve as potential biomarkers of occupational exposure to BeOH. More specifically, BeOH might serve as a biomarker superior to HA because it is apparently less influenced by confounding factors such as dietary intake and genetic polymorphism of low-Km aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH2). The findings will improve workplace safety measures and protocols, assisting health care professionals in diagnosing and managing exposure-related health issues, thereby potentially reducing the risk of occupational exposure to BeOH.

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to present a systematic review of the health-related problems of factory workers in the textile and fashion industry. These workers endure long sitting postures, poor workspace conditions, and long working hours to complete their overload of tasks. This situation results in several health problems that affect the productivity, mental health, and well-being of the workers.

Methods: The relevant data (21 article publications) were obtained from the Scopus database. Analysis of the 21 articles was grouped under 3 research themes based on the critical reading of the content and abstracts: respiratory problems, musculoskeletal disorders, and psychological stressors and other health issues.

Results: The findings show that factory workers are exposed to dust particles of cotton and other raw materials, fumes, and chemicals from manufacturing processes. This prolonged exposure without the use of personal protective equipment (PPE) leads to respiratory diseases like byssinosis that affect the workers' health. Additionally, working in a particular posture due to the workstation design for prolonged hours causes musculoskeletal disorders or pains. Workers also suffer from anxiety, depression, and stress from workload and pressure, hence making them unstable with reduced productivity.

Conclusions: The findings of the study reinforce the need for a safe workspace and spacious work environment, provision of PPE, training in occupational hazards, frequent health checks, and ergonomic assessment of workstations to reduce prolonged work postures. Stakeholders, employers, policymakers, and governments should collaborate to safeguard and protect the well-being and health of the workers at these factories.

Objectives: This study aimed to evaluate the noninferiority of online counseling over face-to-face counseling for specific health guidance (SHG).

Methods: This prospective observational study was conducted using specific health checkup (SHC) and SHG data of individuals with health insurance in Japan. We analyzed data from 1431 participants who met the inclusion criteria, including those who underwent online or face-to-face counseling between April 1, 2020 and March 31, 2021, and received an SHC in the following year but no earlier than 90 days after their first counseling session. Assessed variables comprised demographics, counseling methods, and SHC results, including baseline questionnaire findings and body mass index (BMI) at follow-up. We performed inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW) using propensity scores, with changes in BMI as the objective variable and the counseling method as the explanatory variable. We set the noninferiority margin to 0.175, based on a previous study.

Results: The online and face-to-face counseling groups comprised 455 (31.8%) and 976 (68.2%) participants, respectively. The number of men and mean age were 214 (47.0%) and 49.9 years (SD: 6.9 years), respectively, in the online counseling group, and 491 (50.3%) and 51.1 years (SD: 7.6 years), respectively, in the face-to-face counseling group. IPTW using propensity scores revealed a regression coefficient of -0.014 (95% CI: -0.157 to 0.129) for the online group compared with the face-to-face group (P = .847). The CI was within the noninferiority margin.

Conclusions: The effects of online counseling on BMI are likely noninferior to those of face-to-face counseling.

Objectives: Occupational future time perspective (OFTP) is important concept for a successful career in older workers. The purpose of this study was to examine the associations between individual and work-related factors and OFTP.

Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study via an online questionnaire survey. Respondents were stratified sampled according to the distribution of workers across Japan. To assess OFTP, we used the Japanese version of the OFTP scale. We included factors such as sex, age, education, marital status, subjective health status, personal income, length of employment, industry, size of company, employment status, working days per week, and night shift. Multiple regression analysis was employed to calculate the regression coefficients for each factor, with OFTP serving as the dependent variable.

Results: In total we included 1484 respondents. Our findings indicated that higher OFTP was associated with higher education, better subjective health status, higher personal income, and smaller size of company. Compared with manufacturing, certain industries such as agriculture and forestry, transportation and postal services, and health care showed lower OFTP. In contrast to permanent workers, contract and part-time workers demonstrated lower OFTP, whereas owners of non-family businesses exhibited higher OFTP. Furthermore, individuals working 1-4 d/wk showed lower OFTP compared with those working 5 d/wk.

Conclusions: Older workers facing limitations in resources, such as educational background, personal income, precarious employment, and health status, tend to have lower OFTP. Such individuals should be given priority for support and assistance.

Objectives: To investigate whether chronotype is a moderator variable that also interacts with shift type and whether they jointly influence the attention performance of nurses working in acute and critical care units.

Methods: We adopted a longitudinal research design focusing on nurses working rotating shifts in the emergency room and intensive care units at a medical center. A total of 40 complete samples were obtained. Data analysis was conducted using the generalized estimating equations in SAS 9.4.

Results: The mean (SD) age of the participants was 26.35 (2.12) years. After controlling for age, gender, and sleep duration, an interaction effect was discovered between a specific chronotype and shift type; that is, the interaction effect between chronotype and shift type was only significant when comparing late-types working the night shift with early- and intermediate-types working the night shift (B = -18.81, P = .011). The least squares means of the mean reaction time of the interaction effects between the 2 chronotype groups and the 3 shift types found that the mean reaction time of late-types working the night shift was 11.31 ms (P = .044) slower compared with working the day shift.

Conclusions: The chronotype is a moderator variable between shift type and mean reaction time, such that matching the chronotype of nurses in acute and critical care units with the appropriate shift type improved their mean reaction time. It is hoped that the results of this study could serve as a reference for acute and critical care nurses when scheduling their shifts.