Construction Industry Briefing: Issue 1 (March 07)
This is the first of a regular series of briefings focusing on health issues in the construction industry. The following topics are included: health statistics, asbestos, legislation, risk assessments, and inhaled particles.
Subsequent briefings will include articles written by specialists at the IOM on current topics of interest.The Health and Safety Executive has reported that in 2005/2006 there was a higher level of work-related illness in the construction industry than the other industry sectors. The most recent survey of self-reported work-related illness (SWI) found that 86,000 people whose current or most recent job was in the construction industry had an illness linked to their work. The associated prevalence rate (3,800 per 100,000 people or 3.8%) working in the last year was statistically higher than that for all industries (3,100 per 100,000 people or 3.1%). The only employment with a higher prevalence rate was health and social work (4,100 per 100,000 people or 4.1%). The link below takes you to the statistical data on the HSE web site:
http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/tables/0506/swit5.htm
The Evening Standard recently carried an article highlighting Professor Julian Peto’s warning about the projected rise in asbestos deaths amongst people exposed to asbestos during the 1960s and 1970s. Carpenters, laggers, electricians, ship and dockyard workers are in the highest risk group. Professor Peto stated that Britain has the highest rate of asbestos disease in the world, and he estimated that sixty thousand people in the UK will die from mesothelioma, a cancer almost uniquely linked to asbestos,. This figure is in addition to the thirty thousand who are already dead from the disease. The full article is available at:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/
A special issue of the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health has been published that focuses on the international construction industry. It includes an article by Andrew Watterson entitled ‘Global construction health and safety – what works, what does not, and why?’, which addresses health and safety problems in the construction industry and argues for the need of a sound research base. Also included in this issue is a paper on a study of male patients at a Canadian cancer treatment centre that demonstrated a significantly increased risk of cancer for construction workers. The full text of all the articles in Vol 13, no. 1 of the journal is available free at:
The Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2007 come into force in Britain from 6 April 2007, and are available online from:
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/HSE has published a guidance document (L144) called ‘Managing health and safety in construction’, which replaces HSG224, the ACOP to the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 1994. A PDF copy of L144 is available on our Barbour Health and Safety Professional service – contact Ken Dixon for more information.
There are new regulations on asbestos in Britain. The IOM has been making presentations to several construction industry bodies on the implementation of the new asbestos regulations. There will be more about this in a later issue.
A new book has been published entitled ‘Living in a chemical world: framing the future in the light of the past’, edited by M Mehlman and others (series: Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences).
There are several chapters on the construction industry in Section II of the book ‘Reducing and Managing Risk in High Hazard Sectors’ (chapters 25-29):
25. The Construction Industry: Ringen and Englund
26. Frequency and Quality of Radiation Monitoring of Construction Workers at Two Gaseous Diffusion Plants: Bingham, Ringen, Dement, Cameron, McGowan, Welch, Quinn
27. Evaluation of Exposure to PAHs in Asphalt Workers by Environmental and Biological Monitoring: Campo, Buratti, Fustinoni, Cirla, Martinotti, Longhi, Cavallo, Foa
28. Carcinogens in the Construction Industry: Järvholm
29. Epoxy Resins in the Construction Industry: Spee, Van Duivenbooden, Terwoert
The full details are on the Blackwell web site:
http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/
The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection has recently published a technical update to its ‘Guidance for Disposal Site Characterisation’, called ‘Characterization of risks due to inhalation of particulates by construction workers’. It notes that ‘Inhalation of airborne particulate matter from contaminated soil is a potentially significant exposure pathway at any site where construction activities involve excavation of soil or movement of vehicles and heavy equipment over soil’. The full text of the update is available via the link below:
http://www.mass.gov/If you would like us to feature any specific construction occupational health issue then let us know.