Effect of welding operations on the health status of workers with low working age

Abstract

Objective To explore the impact of welding operations on the health status of workers with low working age, and provide a basis for occupational health risk assessment for workers of low working age. Methods Used the method of cluster sampling to randomly selected workers from an automobile manufacturing plant in Guangzhou as research subjects: 982 workers with welding posts of 1 year ≤working age ≤5 years were welding groups, 707 workers with simple exposure noise of 1 year ≤working age ≤5 years were assembly groups, and 717 workers in pre-job medical examinations were pre-job groups from June 2017 to September 2018. Then conducted occupational health checks on all subjects, investigated and detected the occupational hazards in welding posts and assembly posts. Results There was no statistical difference between the noise over-standard rate of welding posts' (59.3%, 16/27) and the assembly posts' (47.4%, 9/19) (P>0.05) . The over-standard rate of welding fume, manganese and its inorganic compounds in welding posts was 11.11% (3/27) . The results of occupational health examination showed that the detection rate of disease or abnormal of the welding group was 78.4% (770/982) higher than 70.2% (496/707) in the assembly group and 53.0% (380/717) in the pre-job group (the value of 2 were 14.92 and 122.37, respectively, P<0.05) . The rate of hearing loss of the assembly group and the welding group were 14.7% (104/707) and 19.3% (190/982) , respectively, which was higher than that of the pre-job group (10.5%, 75/717) , and the hearing loss rate gradually increased with the increase of working age (the value of linear-by-linear association were 12.04 and 44.67, respectively, P<0.01) . Compared with the hearing loss rate of each working age of the assembly group, the hearing loss rate of each working age of the welding group was higher, and when the working age was 3 years, the risk of hearing loss in the welding group was 2.70 times that of the assembly group (P<0.01) . The rate of pulmonary dysfunction in the welding group was 19.2% (189/982) higher than that in the pre-job group (12.6%, 90/717) , and it increased with the increase of working age (the value of linear-by-linear association was 15.97, P<0.01) . Conclusion Welding work seriously damages the health of workers with low working age, increases the hearing loss of workers and the occurrence of pulmonary dysfunction; manganese and its compounds increases noise-induced damage to the hearing system. Key words: Welding fume; Manganese and its compounds; Low working age; Hearing loss; Pulmonary ventilation dysfunction