学校給食調理員の健康障害

Abstract

Synthetic detergents are becoming to be consumed largely in domestic life and in working places with the development of petroleum industry in Japan. And, numbers of housewives who complained of eczema of hand and visited the hospital have recently increased. Though the relationship between the use of synthetic detergents and the prevalence of eczema of hand in housewives had studied by some doctors, it has not been made so clear yet.Therefore, health disorders, mainly those of hand skin, in the workers using large amount of synthetic detergents were studied. Observed subjects were 93 female workers for school lunch at 33 schools in Y city, and the control were 85 female teachers, clerks and others in Y city.The results are as follows : 1) The workers for school lunch had significantly more complaints of roughness, thinness or loss of fingerprints, stiffness and exanthema of hand skin than the control. Disorders of hand skin in the workers for school lunch were characterized mainly by non-inflammatory changes such as hyperkeratosis, crevice formation, desquamation, etc. However, erythema of hand including those around nail were also found significantly more in the workers for school lunch than in the control. The disorders of hand skin in the workers might be caused mainly by contact with synthetic detergents for a long time, but they might have been deteriorated by mechanical and other chemical stimuli at washing tablewares or other hand works.2) Disorders of hand skin were improved in summer and became worse in winter in both groups, but this tendency was more remarkable in the school lunch workers than in the control. And percentage of the workers for school lunch who had no complaint of hand skin during all seasons was only 9.7%, while that of those in the control was 35.3%.3) Symptoms and signs of hand skin in some workers for school lunch were improved 3 weeks after soap was used instead of synthetic detergents, and the differences between both groups became not so clear. In spite of this, this might be due to insufficient data, and a further study is desirable.4) In order to prevent the workers from disorders of hand skin, the working conditions should be so improved that the workers would not directly contact synthetic detergents or less toxic substance should be substituted for them.5) The workers for school lunch had significantly more complaints of stiffness or dullness of shoulder, pain of neck and pain of the back than the control as revealed by the questionnaire compiled by the Committee on Neck-Shoulder-Arm Syndrome in Japan Industrial Health Association. It is thought that operations of washing the tablewares in the school might impose a heavy burden to shoulder, neck and the back of the workers.