| Title: | Occupational exposures of flour dust and airborne chemicals at bakeries in Taiwan |
| Author(s): | Chang PT; Hung PC; Tsai SW; |
| Address: | "a Institute of Environmental Health, College of Public Health , National Taiwan University , Taipei, Taiwan. b Institute of Labor , Occupational Safety and Health, Ministry of Labor , Sijhih City, Taipei , Taiwan" |
| DOI: | 10.1080/15459624.2018.1470634 |
| ISSN/ISBN: | 1545-9632 (Electronic) 1545-9624 (Linking) |
| Abstract: | "Walk-through surveys were carried out for bakeries in this study to determine the environmental characteristics of bakeries in Taiwan. Questionnaires were administrated to discover whether job-related asthma-like symptoms occurred among workers. Air sampling and analysis were also performed. The results show that the levels of inhalable flour dust ranged from 0.01-0.83 mg m(-3) with an average of 0.27 mg m(-3). Among the samples collected, 23% of them had concentrations higher than the ACGIH TLV-TWA (0.5 mg m(-3)), which indicated that inhalable flour dust was an important air pollutant for bakery workers in Taiwan. Airborne chemicals such as diacetyl, acetoin, 2,3-pentanedione, 2,3-hexanedione, 2,3-heptanedione, furfural, and acetaldehyde were also found in various levels in this study. The concentrations of acetaldehyde measured in these bakeries were 37-83 times higher than what have been reported from other studies for residential areas and Chinese restaurants. In addition, the concentrations of total VOCs in the working areas of the bakeries were over 21 times higher than the levels determined in the non-working areas. Based on our results, there appears to be a need to improve the air quality of the working environments of bakeries in Taiwan" |
| Keywords: | "Acetaldehyde/analysis Air Pollutants, Occupational/analysis Asthma/epidemiology Dust/analysis Flavoring Agents/analysis Flour/*analysis *Food Handling Humans Occupational Diseases/epidemiology Occupational Exposure/*analysis Surveys and Questionnaires Tai;" |
| Notes: | "MedlineChang, Pei-Ting Hung, Po-Chen Tsai, Shih-Wei eng Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't England 2018/05/01 J Occup Environ Hyg. 2018 Aug; 15(8):580-587. doi: 10.1080/15459624.2018.1470634" |
