The Impact of Hygienic Behavior and Working Methods on the Uptake of Lead and Chromium

Abstract

Hygiene-related behavior and working methods are believed to be important parameters in the relationship between environmental and biological monitoring measures.

To study the impact of hygienic behavior and working methods on the uptake of toxic agents, field studies were performed in two lead and two chromium processing factories. Field studies consisted of environmental and biological monitoring of lead or chromium levels. Besides these measures, hygienic behavior and working methods were described by means of both a questionnaire and workplace observations.

The impact of hygienic behavior was studied by comparing the explained variance of the biological monitoring measure when the environmental monitoring measure is introduced in a regression analysis either with or without hygienic behavior.

In all four factories variation in the biological monitoring measures could be explained to a much larger extent when acknowledging the impact of hygienic behavior. The R² _explained at least doubled.

From our results it can be concluded that hygienic behavior and working method are a major factor in the relationship between environmental and biological monitoring. It may be expected that stressing the impact of hygienic behavior and working methods will be an important factor in decreasing the uptake of toxic agents. Lumens, M.E.G.L.; Ulenbelt, P.; Herber, R.F.M.; Meyman, T.F.: The Impact of Hygienic Behavior and Working Methods on the Uptake of Lead and Chromium. Appl. Occup. Environ. Hyg. 9(1):53–56; 1994.

Key Words:

• chromium
• hygienic behavior
• lead
• working methods