WORK-PLACE CONDITIONS AND HEALTH OF WORKERS IN BUILDING MATERIALS INDUSTRY OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION ACCORDING TO 40-YEARS CLINICAL AND HYGIENIC RESEARCH

Abstract

Introduction. Building materials industry, including the production of clay and ceramic building bricks, cement, concrete products, saw building stone, sawn wood, granite blocks and rubble, is one of the most important economy units, prompting authors to generalize research data about working conditions and the incidence of occupational diseases in the main production building materials industry/ The data were accumulated during many years. Material and methods. Research methods included a comprehensive study of the working conditions of employees at enterprises of construction materials industry, followed by in-depth periodic medical examination. Then, with statistical methods (determination of the confidence interval index of the binomial distribution) calculated confidence interval for the prevalence of patients with an established diagnosis of occupational diseases in similar enterprises. Results. Results of 40-years research on occupational hazards parameters and physical examination of workers employed at productions of clay and ceramic bricks, cement, armed concrete, saw building stone, lumber wood, granite blocks crush stone were summarized because of the absence of complex estimation of work-place conditions and incidence of occupational diseases in main production of building materials industry. Typical occupational hazards were established for the every production. Many productions show the greatest disadvantage concerning levels of physical overload that was neglected by specialists in occupational health and safety for many years. The prevalence of patients suffering from chronic occupational diseases was predicted for employees of investigated productions and the most relevant forms of occupational pathology were determined. About 7.7% of workers in investigated productions appeared to suffer from occupational diseases that were not timely diagnosed. This figure is approximately 10 times higher than official statistics. The dependence of the prevalence of patients with occupational diseases from the level of technological modernization of production was revealed. If we can accept the proportion of patients with occupational diseases among employees working in the complex automated production (the highest degree of organization of labor) for referent unit than at the enterprises with the other technologies the proportion will be different: automated production - 10, mechanical work - 4, mechanical hand work - 5, hand work - 3.