Affecting Factors of Exposure to Influential Factors Assessment for Humidifier Disinfectant Victims in Korea

Abstract

Health adverse effect such as lung disease caused by chemical substances (PHMG, PGH, CMIT/MIT) used in humidifier disinfectants occurred in Korea. 6,005 of requests have been registered up to March 30, 2018 including 1,320 of the dead since 2011 when environment exposure survey has begun. Ministry of Environment of Korea (ME) has conducted comprehensive judgment including medical and environment exposure assessment for victims to evaluate lung disease and causal relationship by exposure to humidifier disinfectant, and organized the Expert Judgment Committee, and conducted a comprehensive judgment. Relationships between exposure characteristics such as ingredient of product, use amount, and use characteristics and health effects were conducted for 2,203 victims from 2011 to 2017 by using of exposure questionnaire. The categories that recorded in survey such as daily using time, cumulative time, using time during sleep, distance from respiratory organ, spraying direction, concentration in the air, exposure level of humidifier disinfectants were scored and exposure levels were graded. We assessed the characterization of exposure to humidifier disinfectants for victims using questionnaire survey, and classified the exposure levels into 5 grades such as definite, probable, possible, indeterminate and unlikely. As victim register order increase, the rate of victims of grade ‘definite’ decrease. There were differences between scored exposure grades and final judgements. The statistical test shows differences in results of comprehensive judgment and environment exposure assessment. It can be explained by the records of the questionnaire on past exposures may be uncertain due to recall bias or psychological effects. If the various health effects data of the humidifier disinfectant victims are analyzed, the users with similar conditions of the humidifier usage characteristics might be grouped to inspect the health effect based on the exposure assessment results.