What You Need to Know
Occupational Asthma
Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease of the airways. Common symptoms include wheezing, coughing, chest tightness, and shortness of breath.
Occupational Asthma is caused by, or made worse by, substances that are breathed in at work, e.g. wood dust, stone dust, poultry dust or fumes, animal dander.
Extrinsic allergic alveolitis (Hypersensitivity pneumonitis), is an inflammation of the alveoli within the lung caused by hypersensitivity to inhaled organic dusts, such as:
Mouldy hay and straw | Farmer’s lung |
Bird excreta and bloom | Bird fancier’s lung |
Mouldy barley | Malt worker’s lung |
Mushroom spores | Mushroom workers lung |
Cheese Mould | Cheese worker’s lung |
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
COPD is a chronic illness that makes breathing difficult due to shortness of breath. COPD is a slow developing condition, the symptoms tend only to start becoming a problem in mid-life. Smoking is the main cause of COPD, but research has linked exposure of specific substances and specific occupations with a higher risk of causing COPD.
Carrying out a risk assessment for airborne hazardous substances in fume, dust, gas or mist present in the breathable air is highly specialised. You will need to commission an occupational hygienist to identify what substances are present in the work environment and to measure the concentration of these substances in the air.
Several Hazardous substances have Workplace Exposure Limits (WELs) which establish safe exposure limits. Refer to the H.S.A. web-site for detailed information.
‘Exposure measurement’ requires a survey to assess people’s exposure to substances in workplace air, and discover how and why this exposure happens.
‘Personal sampling’ is taking an air sample near the worker’s breathing zone to measure the amounts of airborne substances inhaled for a stated task.
The air monitoring program information will guide your implementation of risk control measures.
Health and Safety at Work (Chemical Agents) regulations 2001 and Guidelines on occupational asthma HSA 2007.
Control measures are what steps you are going to take to remove a hazard (eliminate) or at least reduce it to a low level (minimise).
Respiratory health surveillance consists of:
Respiratory health questionnaire
Spirometry (Lung Function Testing)
The Questionnaire gathers information on whether common symptoms of respiratory ill-health such as coughing, wheezing, nasal irritation, difficulty in breathing, tightness of chest are present, and the possible relationship of these symptoms to the workplace.
Lung Function Testing
A lung function test is done with a spirometer. Normal spirometry results are based on the age, height, and gender of the person being tested and most are expressed as a percentage of a predicted value.
Spirometry results are expressed as a percentage, and are considered abnormal if less than 80 percent of the normal predicted value. An abnormal result usually indicates the presence of some degree of obstructive lung disease such as asthma, emphysema or chronic bronchitis, or restrictive lung disease such as pulmonary fibrosis.
MedWise Mobile Medicals provide a complete respiratory surveillance service from on-site spirometry testing, result analysis, specialist occupational health physician review of results, site summary report and multi-year trending and reporting.
A respiratory sensitiser is a substance which when breathed in, can trigger an allergic reaction in the respiratory system. Initial sensitisation does not usually take place immediately, it happens after a period of perhaps weeks or months inhaling the sensitiser. Respiratory sensitisers have the following risk phrase and number in chemical safety data sheets
R42: ‘May cause sensitisation by inhalation’ (may lead to asthma),
R42/43: ‘May cause sensitisation by inhalation and skin contact
See Table of respiratory hazards at end of page
Occupational Asthma
Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease of the airways. Common symptoms include wheezing, coughing, chest tightness, and shortness of breath.
Occupational Asthma is caused by, or made worse by, substances that are breathed in at work, e.g. wood dust, stone dust, poultry dust or fumes, animal dander.
Extrinsic allergic alveolitis (Hypersensitivity pneumonitis), is an inflammation of the alveoli within the lung caused by hypersensitivity to inhaled organic dusts, such as:
Mouldy hay and straw | Farmer’s lung |
Bird excreta and bloom | Bird fancier’s lung |
Mouldy barley | Malt worker’s lung |
Mushroom spores | Mushroom workers lung |
Cheese Mould | Cheese worker’s lung |
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
COPD is a chronic illness that makes breathing difficult due to shortness of breath. COPD is a slow developing condition, the symptoms tend only to start becoming a problem in mid-life. Smoking is the main cause of COPD, but research has linked exposure of specific substances and specific occupations with a higher risk of causing COPD.
