1,721,256 research outputs found
L'agricoltura in Italia oggi : rischi antichi e patologie emergenti
No full textLe attività agricole, fondamentali perché producono alimenti utilizzando l’ambiente, comportano l’esposizione dei lavoratori a tutti i fattori di rischio occupazionali noti: antiparassitari e altri prodotti chimici, rumore, vibrazioni, radiazione solare, fattori climatici, organizzativi, biomeccanici, biologici e allergologici. Anche il rischio infortunistico è rilevante e significativo. A tali rischi, da anni noti e affrontati, si sommano rischi e patologie nuovi o emergenti, tra i quali il rischio biologico da vettori, aumentato dai cambiamenti climatici in atto, e il rischio di nuove patologie legate e nuove modalità produttive, quali la neuropatia periferica dei macellatori di suini. I rischi possono interessare gruppi particolarmente vulnerabili, quali i lavoratori stagionali, temporanei e migranti. È attualmente presente un incremento delle segnalazioni di tecnopatie nel settore, principalmente delle patologie a genesi biomeccanica, che non deve essere interpretato come indicativo di peggioramento della situazione ma invece segnale di aumentata attenzione verso questi lavoratori con aumentata notifica malattie professionali.Since produce food using the environment, agricultural activities are fundamental for human and environmental health. They expose workers to all the known health and safety risks: pesticides and other chemicals, noise, vibrations, solar radiation, climate changes, organisational factors, biological, biomechanical and allergic risks. Also the risk of accidents is very relevant. Apart for these well-known risks, new risks and diseases are emerging, such as biological risk from vectors, modulated by climate changes, or risks related to new production modalities, such as the cases of peripheral neuropathy observed in pig butchers. The risks can affect particularly vulnerable groups, such as seasonal, temporary workers and migrants. Currently, in Italy, an increase in reports of occupational diseases in the sector is being observed, in particular for musculoskeletal disorders. Such increase finds an explanation not in a worsening situation at the workplace but in an increasing attention for rural workers accompanied by an increased reporting of occupational diseases
Agriculture
No full textEditorial
More than half of the human population lives and works in rural areas, mainly engaged in agricultural activities: agriculture represents the main source of income in developing Countries, but it is significantly present also in the so called “developed areas” of the world. This ancient human activity produces foods and uses land. In a world where the demand of food is growing very quickly, quality and quantity of food are at the basis of the healthiness of millions people. On the other hand, agricultural activities might cause environmental resource depletion and pollution. Therefore, rural areas are directly linked with the wellbeing of entire communities, as clearly demonstrated by the recent outbreaks of mad caw disease and avian flue, started from rural settings. Despite their social relevance, rural areas are largely neglected by research, prevention and welfare, and nowadays rural inhabitants are suffering an evident gap in life quality, sanitation, income, and distribution of welfare benefits, including occupational health care, if compared to the urban dwellers.
Rural communities are organized in villages, where agriculture and related activities are being carried out, with the typical lack of a clear separation between living and working environments, and living and working time. Due to this specificity, very often entire families are involved in agricultural activities, sometimes in a non-official way, particularly in the family-based enterprises, where an important proportion of elderly and children are present.
The rural village is the house of these people and the place of their activities and, for this reason, it is the target of any preventive intervention in rural areas. Only an healthy village, made by healthy people, can produce healthy food for the entire community, in the respect of living environment. This makes the centrality or rurality in the world, and this is the reason why, at the end of the 16th International Congress on Rural Health, held in Lodi (Italy) on June 2006 it has been approved the “Lodi Declaration on Healthy Villages”, and launched the Global Movement on Healthy Villages, official campaign of the World Health Organization.
On of the major values of the Lodi Declaration is the awareness that, due to the complexity and specificity of rural areas, the approach to rural health needs to be holistic and cross sectional. Cross sectional among expertises, with the involvement of academia, rural health personnel, rural medical doctors, among disciplines, with the involvement of medicine, occupational medicine, agronomic sciences, veterinary medicine, and among countries, with the involvement either of the “developed” world, or of developing countries and countries in transition. Having in mind that the “developed” world makes large use of food commodities coming from developing world, while the latter needs - for the production of these commodities - technology and plant protection products often developed and produced in industrialized countries.
In the frame of the activities addressed at promoting the global campaign “Healthy Village” in the world, an important component needs to be addressed at occupational health an safety in agriculture, and a particular attention needs to be addressed at the developing world. Hot spots of these activities are an unacceptable high number of accidents and fatalities, underreporting of occupational diseases, lack of health care structures, lack of adequately trained rural health personnel. This is the reason why this editorial activity of the African Newsletter is important and timely: it is supposed, hopefully, to be one of the steps toward the development of the global campaign “Healthy Villages” in the African Continent
Development of new tools for bringing pesticide risk assessment in the small size enterprises and in the developing world
Full text linkThe role of pesticides in the modern society has been strengthened by the need for higher yield in food production and the ongoing battle against vector borne diseases in public health. Nevertheless, the toxicity of these chemicals is not fully specific to target organisms, thus posing a potential health threat to humans. In this frame, risk assessment and management are fundamental. In the occupational settings, variability of meteorological conditions, use of different concentrations of highboy variable mixtures, and significant variations in the application times and modalities make this task very complicated, underlining the need for novel approaches for conducting ‘in field’ preventive activities. New developments in pesticide risk assessment should start from the fact that the amount of information collected during the process of authorisation of new active ingredients is unique, similar to that available for pharmaceutical products, and that this significant amount of information is scarcely used in the post market risk assessment activities. In this light, a possible way forward for pesticide risk assessment is represented by a better exploitation of these data, in approaches with variable levels of complexity; the simplest, is the evaluation of the adherence of the use scenario under evaluation with the one checked and approved in the authorisation process and synthesised in the good agricultural practices. Other parameters such as Acceptable Operator Exposure Level (AOEL), acute reference dose (ArD) as well data regarding skin absorption, metabolism and relevant metabolites in animals can find use in the realisation of models adequate to estimate the dose and the risk without doing analysis, as well as to calculate provisional biological exposure indices, defining the dose supposed to be excreted in a subject exposed at the AOEL level. This can be done conducing real-life field studies to usable refine and validate the risk hypotheses generated through modelling
Experiences and lessons learnt in the preparation of lists of occupational diseases and of the related diagnostic criteria
Full text linkAccording to ILO, an occupational disease is “Any disease contracted as a result of an exposure to risk factors arising from work activity”. In most countries, a disease is defined “occupational” when the national authorities acknowledge its occupational origin. The main tool available to national authorities to recognize the occupational origin of a disease are the lists, but aims, contents, structure and size of the lists significantly vary, from countries which have not any list to countries having lists composed of more than hundred groups of occupational diseases, therefore harmonization is needed. A disease can be included in a list when the evidence of its link with exposure is strong, and solid diagnostic criteria exist. The main points for definition of diagnostic criteria are clinical features, occupational history and exposure, natural history and progress of the disease, and differential diagnosis. Other parameters are the minimum intensity of the exposure necessary to cause the disease and its minimum duration, the maximum latent period, that is the maximum time that can elapse from the induction or, as surrogate, from the beginning of exposure to the onset of the disease. Finally, the criteria of a minimum induction and the maximum disease-free period (from the end of the exposure to the onset of the disease) should be fulfilled. Unfortunately, these criteria cannot be guaranteed in condition mainly “symptom based”, such as low back pain, migraine, burnout, Karoshi. Also new diseases, diseases emerging from new risks or from new presentations of know risks deserve attention. Finally, the main properties of “good” lists and criteria are credibility (involvement of experts and availability of references), consensus (among experts, employers, employees and governments), and consistency. These criteria and needs have been considered in the preparation of the document “International Guidance Notes on the Diagnostic Criteria of Occupational Diseases”
La durata dell’esposizione: informazione negletta nella valutazione del rischio da pesticidi
Full text linkIntroduzione
In ambito di valutazione preliminare all’autorizzazione all’impiego, ma anche in studi sul campo, la valutazione del rischio da antiparassitari è condotta ipotizzando che la durata di una giornata lavorativa sia pari a 8 ore. Purtroppo, in agricoltura, la giornata lavorativa non ha praticamente mai una durata standard, e nella raccolta di dati condotta in corso di studi sul campo, con stima dell’assorbimento cutaneo, non si tiene conto del fatto che i lavoratori lavano le mani più volte durante la giornata lavorativa. In questi casi, considerare la durata di esposizione del corpo e delle mani 8 ore senza considerare eventuali lavaggi effettuati nel corso della giornata potrebbe portare un errore nella valutazione della dose assorbita e, quindi, del rischio per la salute.
Obiettivi
Lo scopo di questo studio era di stimare la dose di antiparassitario assorbita in corso di applicazioni in agricoltura e quantificare l'influenza della durata dell'esposizione sulla dose interna usando una nuova tecnica statistica.
Metodi
In una serie di studi sul campo su 29 lavoratori che avevano applicato il fungicida etilenbisditiocarbammato di manganese e zinco (mancozeb) su vigneti per 38 giorni lavorativi, sono stati raccolti tre set di dati: informazioni dettagliate sulle attività lavorative svolte per ogni giornata lavorativa, dose cutanea “potenziale” (al disopra dell’abbigliamento) e effettiva (sulla cute) attraverso l’applicazione di pads cutanei. È stata inoltre determinata la concentrazione del principale metabolita del mancozeb, etilentiourea (ETU) sia nella 24 ore precedenti l’esposizione sia nelle 24 successive, La valutazione statistica è stata condotta utilizzando il linguaggio e l'ambiente per il calcolo statistico “R”.
Risultati
L’aver considerato nei nostri calcoli la durata dell’esposizione ha portato a una riduzione significativa e quindi a stime più realistiche della dose assorbita rispetto aalle stime condotte ipotizzando una giornata lavorativa standard. In particolare, la dose totale assorbita (escluse le mani), la dose assorbita attraverso le mani, e la dose totale sono risultate pari a meno di 1 ng/kg pc, 3 ng/kg pc e 3 ng/kg pc rispettivamente considerando un turno di 8 ore. La correzione per tempo reale del turno e lavaggio delle mani ha portato ad una riduzione, rispettivamente, del 50%, 81% e 80%. Dopo tale elaborazione, la dose totale assorbita correlava meglio con i livelli di ETU delle urine delle 24 ore post-esposizione rispetto alla dose delle mani, sebbene più del 90% della dose totale assorbita stimata provenga dalle mani.
Conclusioni
Una migliore capacità di stimare la dose totale di antiparassitari assorbita, unitamente alla identificazione di indicatori biologici di dose affidati e validati, come nel nostro caso l'ETU urinaria, possono facilitare la modellizzazione dei livelli di esposizione e permettere di mettere a punto strumenti per la valutazione del rischio senza necessità di ricorrere a misure (“profili”), o anche promuovere l'uso del monitoraggio biologico nella valutazione del rischio da antiparassitari in un ambito critico come l’agricoltura
Developing essential interventions towards full access of rural population to health care : a proposal of collaboration between occupational health physicians and rural GPs : EURIPA: the European rural and isolated practitioners association
No full textPesticide risk evaluation and management in the field : the experience of Southern Europena Countries
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