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Criteria for Occupational Health Prevention for Solar UVR Exposed Outdoor Workers-Prevalence, Affected Parties, and Occupational Disease

Non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC) is the most common cancer in western countries. Legislative bodies and stakeholders like WHO and EU strongly promote protection against solar UVR, especially in workers. Occupational health prevention must be introduced as a strong instrument in workers protection als...

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Autor principal: Wittlich, Marc
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8826221/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35155340
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2021.772290
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author Wittlich, Marc
author_facet Wittlich, Marc
author_sort Wittlich, Marc
collection PubMed
description Non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC) is the most common cancer in western countries. Legislative bodies and stakeholders like WHO and EU strongly promote protection against solar UVR, especially in workers. Occupational health prevention must be introduced as a strong instrument in workers protection also with regard to occupational disease issues. To date, criteria for both occupational health prevention and occupational disease are missing and the identification of risk groups has no metric basis. Here I report a criteria analysis based on the largest comprehensive data set of occupational ultraviolet radiation exposure of outdoor workers. With detailed research on occupation-specific dosimetric measurements of 45.000 measurement days in 176 occupations and sub-occupations, it is possible to map criteria for occupational health prevention specifically and to identify affected occupations. The number of employees affected can be elucidated worldwide. For the first time, a direct link to retrospective occupational disease criteria could be established. Of the 176 occupations and sub-occupations selected for this work, 153 (=87%) exceed the criterion for occupational health prevention and thus need special attention. This includes all occupations with annual exposures of more than 150 SED. Employment figures for the EU and the world yield the total number of affected workers to be 36.1 million and more than 500 million, respectively. These new criteria for occupational health prevention are valid and in good agreement with international research on limit values by WHO and ICNIRP. If applied correctly and consistently, these criteria can prevent occupational disease. It will be possible to identify occupations and sub-occupations that have an urgent need for prevention to avoid chronic skin damage leading to cancer. This research serves as a basis for policy making and clinical risk identification, as well as for daily practice of occupational physicians and employers responsible for risk assesment.
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spelling pubmed-88262212022-02-10 Criteria for Occupational Health Prevention for Solar UVR Exposed Outdoor Workers-Prevalence, Affected Parties, and Occupational Disease Wittlich, Marc Front Public Health Public Health Non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC) is the most common cancer in western countries. Legislative bodies and stakeholders like WHO and EU strongly promote protection against solar UVR, especially in workers. Occupational health prevention must be introduced as a strong instrument in workers protection also with regard to occupational disease issues. To date, criteria for both occupational health prevention and occupational disease are missing and the identification of risk groups has no metric basis. Here I report a criteria analysis based on the largest comprehensive data set of occupational ultraviolet radiation exposure of outdoor workers. With detailed research on occupation-specific dosimetric measurements of 45.000 measurement days in 176 occupations and sub-occupations, it is possible to map criteria for occupational health prevention specifically and to identify affected occupations. The number of employees affected can be elucidated worldwide. For the first time, a direct link to retrospective occupational disease criteria could be established. Of the 176 occupations and sub-occupations selected for this work, 153 (=87%) exceed the criterion for occupational health prevention and thus need special attention. This includes all occupations with annual exposures of more than 150 SED. Employment figures for the EU and the world yield the total number of affected workers to be 36.1 million and more than 500 million, respectively. These new criteria for occupational health prevention are valid and in good agreement with international research on limit values by WHO and ICNIRP. If applied correctly and consistently, these criteria can prevent occupational disease. It will be possible to identify occupations and sub-occupations that have an urgent need for prevention to avoid chronic skin damage leading to cancer. This research serves as a basis for policy making and clinical risk identification, as well as for daily practice of occupational physicians and employers responsible for risk assesment. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-01-26 /pmc/articles/PMC8826221/ /pubmed/35155340 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2021.772290 Text en Copyright © 2022 Wittlich. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Public Health
Wittlich, Marc
Criteria for Occupational Health Prevention for Solar UVR Exposed Outdoor Workers-Prevalence, Affected Parties, and Occupational Disease
title Criteria for Occupational Health Prevention for Solar UVR Exposed Outdoor Workers-Prevalence, Affected Parties, and Occupational Disease
title_full Criteria for Occupational Health Prevention for Solar UVR Exposed Outdoor Workers-Prevalence, Affected Parties, and Occupational Disease
title_fullStr Criteria for Occupational Health Prevention for Solar UVR Exposed Outdoor Workers-Prevalence, Affected Parties, and Occupational Disease
title_full_unstemmed Criteria for Occupational Health Prevention for Solar UVR Exposed Outdoor Workers-Prevalence, Affected Parties, and Occupational Disease
title_short Criteria for Occupational Health Prevention for Solar UVR Exposed Outdoor Workers-Prevalence, Affected Parties, and Occupational Disease
title_sort criteria for occupational health prevention for solar uvr exposed outdoor workers-prevalence, affected parties, and occupational disease
topic Public Health
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8826221/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35155340
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2021.772290
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