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Occupational lead exposure among automotive garage workers – a case study for Jimma town, Ethiopia

BACKGROUND: In Ethiopia, although there are numerous small-scale and medium industries which use lead-based raw materials that may pose health risks to workers, there are no workplace regulations for lead exposure. Moreover, there are no studies carried out on the blood lead levels (BLLs) of workers...

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Autores principales: Adela, Yalemsew, Ambelu, Argaw, Tessema, Dejene A
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2012
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3441537/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22776678
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1745-6673-7-15
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author Adela, Yalemsew
Ambelu, Argaw
Tessema, Dejene A
author_facet Adela, Yalemsew
Ambelu, Argaw
Tessema, Dejene A
author_sort Adela, Yalemsew
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: In Ethiopia, although there are numerous small-scale and medium industries which use lead-based raw materials that may pose health risks to workers, there are no workplace regulations for lead exposure. Moreover, there are no studies carried out on the blood lead levels (BLLs) of workers or on the contribution of common workplace practices to lead poisoning. METHOD: A cross-sectional study on the BLLs of 45 automotive garage workers and 40 non-garage workers was carried out in the town of Jimma, Ethiopia. In addition to BLL analysis, data on some risk factors such as smoking, and chewing ‘khat’ (the leaves of Catha adulis) were gathered through structured questionnaires and interviews and data analysis was performed using SPSS (version 16). The t-test was used to compare mean BLLs of study groups. The analysis of variance (ANOVA), Kruskal-Wallis, Pearson chi-square and odds ratio tests were used to investigate the associations between specific job type, smoking and/or ‘khat’ chewing, service years and occurrence of non-specific symptoms with BLLs. RESULTS: The mean BLL of the automotive-garage workers was found to be significantly greater than that of the controls. The BLLs of all the lead-exposed individuals were found to be over 10 μg/dL, and 53% of them had BLLs ranging 12 – 20 μg/dL, with the remaining 47% having over 20 μg/dL. The BLL of the workers increased with the duration of working in an automotive garage. Individuals involved in manual car painting comprise a larger percentage (58%) of those with the highest BLLs (≥ 20 μg/dL). Lead accumulation in individuals who chew ‘khat’ in the work place was found to be faster than in those who are not used to chewing ‘khat’. ‘Khat’ is an evergreen shrub native to tropical East Africa, with dark green opposite leaves which are chewed when fresh for their stimulating effects. CONCLUSION: The findings of the study have clearly demonstrated that the BLLs of automotive-garage workers in Jimma town are considerably high with a range of 11.73 – 36.52 μg/dL and the workers are in danger of impending lead toxicity. The BLLs of the workers are influenced by their occupational practices, chewing Catha adulis leaves at the workplace, and the time spent working in an automotive garage.
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spelling pubmed-34415372012-09-14 Occupational lead exposure among automotive garage workers – a case study for Jimma town, Ethiopia Adela, Yalemsew Ambelu, Argaw Tessema, Dejene A J Occup Med Toxicol Research BACKGROUND: In Ethiopia, although there are numerous small-scale and medium industries which use lead-based raw materials that may pose health risks to workers, there are no workplace regulations for lead exposure. Moreover, there are no studies carried out on the blood lead levels (BLLs) of workers or on the contribution of common workplace practices to lead poisoning. METHOD: A cross-sectional study on the BLLs of 45 automotive garage workers and 40 non-garage workers was carried out in the town of Jimma, Ethiopia. In addition to BLL analysis, data on some risk factors such as smoking, and chewing ‘khat’ (the leaves of Catha adulis) were gathered through structured questionnaires and interviews and data analysis was performed using SPSS (version 16). The t-test was used to compare mean BLLs of study groups. The analysis of variance (ANOVA), Kruskal-Wallis, Pearson chi-square and odds ratio tests were used to investigate the associations between specific job type, smoking and/or ‘khat’ chewing, service years and occurrence of non-specific symptoms with BLLs. RESULTS: The mean BLL of the automotive-garage workers was found to be significantly greater than that of the controls. The BLLs of all the lead-exposed individuals were found to be over 10 μg/dL, and 53% of them had BLLs ranging 12 – 20 μg/dL, with the remaining 47% having over 20 μg/dL. The BLL of the workers increased with the duration of working in an automotive garage. Individuals involved in manual car painting comprise a larger percentage (58%) of those with the highest BLLs (≥ 20 μg/dL). Lead accumulation in individuals who chew ‘khat’ in the work place was found to be faster than in those who are not used to chewing ‘khat’. ‘Khat’ is an evergreen shrub native to tropical East Africa, with dark green opposite leaves which are chewed when fresh for their stimulating effects. CONCLUSION: The findings of the study have clearly demonstrated that the BLLs of automotive-garage workers in Jimma town are considerably high with a range of 11.73 – 36.52 μg/dL and the workers are in danger of impending lead toxicity. The BLLs of the workers are influenced by their occupational practices, chewing Catha adulis leaves at the workplace, and the time spent working in an automotive garage. BioMed Central 2012-07-09 /pmc/articles/PMC3441537/ /pubmed/22776678 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1745-6673-7-15 Text en Copyright ©2012 Adela et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research
Adela, Yalemsew
Ambelu, Argaw
Tessema, Dejene A
Occupational lead exposure among automotive garage workers – a case study for Jimma town, Ethiopia
title Occupational lead exposure among automotive garage workers – a case study for Jimma town, Ethiopia
title_full Occupational lead exposure among automotive garage workers – a case study for Jimma town, Ethiopia
title_fullStr Occupational lead exposure among automotive garage workers – a case study for Jimma town, Ethiopia
title_full_unstemmed Occupational lead exposure among automotive garage workers – a case study for Jimma town, Ethiopia
title_short Occupational lead exposure among automotive garage workers – a case study for Jimma town, Ethiopia
title_sort occupational lead exposure among automotive garage workers – a case study for jimma town, ethiopia
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3441537/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22776678
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1745-6673-7-15
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