Synergist - April 2012

posure control strategies. The OEB process will expand the scope of industrial hygiene to all chemical hazards and facilitate informed decision making during the design (and redesign) of processes, products and facilities.

Uses of OEBs

Successful use of OEBs has been demonstrated in large manufacturing companies as well as small and medium-sized enterprises, distributors and formulators. OEBs are useful in product stewardship and Responsible Care® strategies and can be leveraged throughout the cradle-to-cradle life cycle.

Imagine the exposure risk assessment process in a large global chemical manufacturer such as The Dow Chemical Company, which provides a single standard of care in every facility, including smaller external manufacturing facilities, distributors and formulators. Dow manufactures more than 5,000 products at 188 sites in 35 countries, and uses or isolates about 70,000 chemicals to make those products. The vast majority of these chemicals do not have authoritative OELs, so Dow uses occupational exposure banding to assess risk and control worker exposures with greater confidence. OEBs help hygienists and engineers understand the health effects of chemicals so important decisions about controlling worker exposure can be made.

In Dow’s production facilities, OEBs verify that existing engineering control strategies are adequately protective. Since the early 1950s, Dow hygienists have used toxicology data to assign exposure risk management control strategies based on OEBs. In recent years, this process has included use of EU risk phrases and GHS phrases to improve the consistency of the banding outcomes. In addition to providing information about the degree, duration and frequency of exposure, the OEBs help prioritize and assess exposure risks for each task and each chemical used within each job class. Hygienists at Dow use direct monitoring methods or surrogate exposure assessments to verify that an existing control strategy adequately maintains exposures below the targeted levels in the OEB.

OEBs also help determine appropriate chemical substitutions. In one case at Dow, a solid material that had a moderate amount of toxicology data was found to cause a severe rash in some employees. The nature of these rashes drove Dow to gather more information and cancel the use of this material in all Dow facilities.

Product Stewardship

Dow also uses OEBs to provide specific end user information to groups of workers through product stewardship efforts, particularly where an OEL may be unavailable or inadequate, or where exposure situations may result in illness. In 2005, Dow collaborated with NIOSH and Kaiser Permanente hospitals in California to provide updated hazard information to endoscopy nurses for the cold disinfectant glutaraldehyde, utilizing the Dow OEB process. Endoscopy nurses are focused on infection control and protection against bloodborne pathogens; peak exposures to a glutaraldehyde formulation resulted in needless respiratory sensitization of the workers.

Using this new data, Dow, NIOSH, OSHA and Kaiser Permanente reached out to product formulators and nurses to warn them about the impact of peak exposures. A strategy was developed to communicate the Prevention through Design approaches to control peak exposures through modifications to facility design, ventilation systems, work practices, PPE, hazard communication and spill cleanup. Development of the OEB and related control approaches and the substitution of alternatives are believed to have contributed to a steep reduction in illnesses related to peak exposures.

Looking Ahead

OEBs will provide many more opportunities for industrial hygienists to prevent occupational illness through the application of ERAM. OEBs will help manufacturers communicate hazards and data-based risk management strategies. OEBs and Prevention through Design give chemical manufacturers, employers, workers and end users another avenue

through which exposure risks are assessed and mitigated.

The ultimate goal is for the design engineer to include the output of the occupational health categorization process and exposure risk assessment into the design of facilities, processes, equipment and products. Designing-in appropriate controls for all potentially hazardous chemicals will protect workers, reduce costs and facilitate speed-to-market.

Donna S. Heidel, MS, CIH, is a research industrial hygienist with NIOSH in Cincinnati, Ohio. She can be reached at (513) 533-8489 or dheidel@cdc.gov.

Susan D. Ripple, MS, CIH, is a global senior industrial hygiene manager with the Dow Chemical Company in Midland, Mich. She can be reached at (989) 636-5572 or sdripple@dow.com.

Reference

1. Leigh, J.P.: “Economic Burden of Occupational Injury and Illness in the United States.” Milbank Quarterly, 89: 728–772 (2011).

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