A New Paradigm for Workplace Air Sampling and Cost-Effective Exposure Assessment

Colorado State University, Fort Collins CO

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

? DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Airborne chemical and biological hazards contribute substantially to our nation's occupational disease burden. And yet, the resources needed to monitor workforce exposure to these hazards are scarce. Ironically, while the cost of healthcare (and worker's compensation) is on the rise, both private and federal investment in industrial hygiene and workforce protection is on the decline. In the absence of (and bleak outlook for) renewed funding to ensure worker health, our field must strive to become dramatically more effective in light of diminishing resources. Therefore, a need exists to improve the efficiency, timeliness, and cost-effectiveness of workplace hazard surveillance. This project will develop and synergize innovative technologies to address that need. This project aims to advance the state-of-the-art in aerosol exposure measurement. Our field has relied for too long on an outdated, inefficient, and expensive paradigm that often leads to inadequate hazard surveillance. Our overarching hypothesis is that the high cost of air sampling/analysis is a limiting factor in our ability to protect worker health. These costs (literally hundreds of dollarsper measurement) preclude day-to-day industrial hygiene efforts, they limit regulatory enforcement, and they stifle the development of credible epidemiology; the latter, in turn, hinders our ability o develop new exposure guidelines (and interventions) that protect worker health. The objective of this work, therefore, is to develop personal air sampling and analysis technologies (pump, sampler, and in-field chemical assays) so that workplace air monitoring can become more cost-effective, timely, and representative. This research will develop technology that reduces the cost of workplace air monitoring by over an order of magnitude and the time from sampling to hazard communication from weeks to hours. As a result, this project has the potential to break a long-held paradigm of inefficient and expensive hazard surveillance. By enabling more efficient, low-cost monitoring, these technologies will allow occupational health researchers to survey hazards (and prevent disease) on a wider scale and across virtually every NORA sector. In the developing world, this technology could empower a rebirth of industrial hygiene in many developing (and very unsafe) industrial sectors.