Determinación del perfil de exposición potencial a contaminantes químicos mediante el uso de metodologías de evaluación simplificada en trabajadores de autopartes en el barrio La Paz, Bogotá 2015

Abstract

The car maintenance activities requires the use of diverses chemical agents. Different maintenance tasks will involve various degrees of exposure while handling chemical products. Traditionally, the pollutants test from vision of ocupational hygiene, includes the quantitative evaluation of the exposure through concrete and standardized important technique. This determines the pollution level that the worker is exposed to and, compared with the allowed value limits (VLPs), promotes the establishment of measures of vigilance and control according to the characterized risk. Nevertheless, the limitation of the implantation of this system is evident particularly in micro and little companies that lack enough resources to deal with the problem in an objective way. In this context diverse methodologies of qualitative or subjective evaluation have been developed by different organizations in the world with the purpose of lowering the gap between the establishment of measures of vigilance and control and the risk assessment, offering trustable alternatives to take preventive decisions without the need of referring to quantitative measures. Through this research we validate the reliability in the use of a simplified chemical risk evaluation tool proposed by the INRS (Institut National de Recherche et de Sécurité – French) through the determination of potential exposure to chemical pollutants profile of working population of 36 car dealerships located in the “La Paz” neighborhood in Bogota, Colombia, divided according their work in: external parts, electrical parts and injection, mechanical parts and multiples parts, through a crosswise research. This study allowed us to organize the potential risk in a hierarchy, value the risk through inhalation and skin wise to finally build the worker’s potential exposition to chemical pollutants profile. The variable’s information of the analysis was consolidated in a software tool designed for that purpose, to enable easy data management and analysis. Based on the findings was possible to establish which chemical products, according to the work conditions and exposure circumstances, requires specific measures for lowering the potential risk according to the agents global score, allowing to deduce the viability of the application of qualitative assessment tools for the chemical risk evaluation as primary prevention.