Banding the World Together; The Global Growth of Control Banding and Qualitative Occupational Risk Management

Control Banding (CB) strategies to prevent work-related illness and injury for 2.5 billion workers without access to health and safety professionals has grown exponentially this last decade. CB originates from the pharmaceutical industry to control active pharmaceutical ingredients without a complete toxicological basis and therefore no occupational exposure limits. CB applications have broadened into chemicals in general - including new emerging risks like nanomaterials and recently into ergonomics and injury prevention. CB is an action-oriented qualitative risk assessment strategy offering solutions and control measures to users through “toolkits”. Chemical CB toolkits are user-friendly approaches used to achieve workplace controls in the absence of firm toxicological and quantitative exposure information. The model (technical) validation of these toolkits is well described, however firm operational analyses (implementation aspects) are lacking. Consequentially, it is often not known if toolkit use leads to successful interventions at individual workplaces. This might lead to virtual safe workplaces without knowing if workers are truly protected. Upcoming international strategies from the World Health Organization Collaborating Centers request assistance in developing and evaluating action-oriented procedures for workplace risk assessment and control. It is expected that to fulfill this strategy’s goals, CB approaches will continue its important growth in protecting workers

Functional requirements to develop a new risk assessment model for exposure to biological agents

Within Occupational Risk Prevention, the assessment of risks due to exposure to biological agents has received little attention compared to risks such as those arising from chemicals. This was the case until the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of health effects related to exposure to biological agents in the work environment. However, the tools for hazard inventory, risk assessment, and implementation of control measures for biological agents are scarce. There are many reasons that make it challenging for OHS professionals to assess the exposure to biological agents such as, little knowledge of the biological agents potentially present in the different economic activities, their effects on health, the lack of standardized methods for quantitative sampling or the lack of reference values available for most biological agents. Different qualitative risk assessment tools for biological agents have been developed over the last decades. Some examples are the Simplified Evaluation of the INSST (Spain), the Biogaval-Neo of the INVASSAT (Spain), the Bioaerosol Tool of the IRSST (Canada) or the RIE Method of the NKAL (The Netherlands). These tools differ from each other in terms of their scope and the parameters used to determine risk and were compared in order to better understand their limitations and applicability. After the comparison was carried out some additional specific parameters have been proposed as essential for the development of this new model. The proposed improvements could be implemented in the development of a new qualitative biological risk assessment model in the Stoffenmanager® tool.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Theoretical Background of Occupational-Exposure Models-Report of an Expert Workshop of the ISES Europe Working Group "Exposure Models"

On 20 October 2020, the Working Group "Exposure Models" of the Europe Regional Chapter of the International Society of Exposure Science (ISES Europe) organised an online workshop to discuss the theoretical background of models for the assessment of occupational exposure to chemicals. In this report, participants of the workshop with an active role before and during the workshop summarise the most relevant discussion points and conclusions of this well-attended workshop. ISES Europe has identified exposure modelling as one priority area for the strategic development of exposure science in Europe in the coming years. This specific workshop aimed to discuss the main challenges in developing, validating, and using occupational-exposure models for regulatory purposes. The theoretical background, application domain, and limitations of different modelling approaches were presented and discussed, focusing on empirical "modifying-factor" or "mass-balance-based" approaches. During the discussions, these approaches were compared and analysed. Possibilities to address the discussed challenges could be a validation study involving alternative modelling approaches. The wider discussion touched upon the close relationship between modelling and monitoring and the need for better linkage of the methods and the need for common monitoring databases that include data on model parameters.Peer reviewe

Exposure modelling in Europe : how to pave the road for the future as part of the European Exposure Science Strategy 2020-2030

Exposure models are essential in almost all relevant contexts for exposure science. To address the numerous challenges and gaps that exist, exposure modelling is one of the priority areas of the European Exposure Science Strategy developed by the European Chapter of the International Society of Exposure Science (ISES Europe). A strategy was developed for the priority area of exposure modelling in Europe with four strategic objectives. These objectives are (1) improvement of models and tools, (2) development of new methodologies and support for understudied fields, (3) improvement of model use and (4) regulatory needs for modelling. In a bottom-up approach, exposure modellers from different European countries and institutions who are active in the fields of occupational, population and environmental exposure science pooled their expertise under the umbrella of the ISES Europe Working Group on exposure models. This working group assessed the state-of-the-art of exposure modelling in Europe by developing an inventory of exposure models used in Europe and reviewing the existing literature on pitfalls for exposure modelling, in order to identify crucial modelling-related strategy elements. Decisive actions were defined for ISES Europe stakeholders, including collecting available models and accompanying information in a living document curated and published by ISES Europe, as well as a long-term goal of developing a best-practices handbook. Alongside these actions, recommendations were developed and addressed to stakeholders outside of ISES Europe. Four strategic objectives were identified with an associated action plan and roadmap for the implementation of the European Exposure Science Strategy for exposure modelling. This strategic plan will foster a common understanding of modelling-related methodology, terminology and future research in Europe, and have a broader impact on strategic considerations globally.Peer reviewe

an ISES Europe statement

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An Intervention Study on the Implementation of Control Banding in Controlling Exposure to Hazardous Chemicals in Small and Medium-sized Enterprises

Background: Management and workers in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) often find it hard to comprehend the requirements related to controlling risks due to exposure to substances. An intervention study was set up in order to support 45 SMEs in improving the management of the risks of occupational exposure to chemicals, and in using the control banding tool and exposure model Stoffenmanager in this process. Methods: A 2-year intervention study was carried out, in which a mix of individual and collective training and support was offered, and baseline and effect measurements were carried out by means of structured interviews, in order to measure progress made. A seven-phase implementation evolutionary ladder was used for this purpose. Success and failure factors were identified by means of company visits and structured interviews. Results: Most companies clearly moved upwards on the implementation evolutionary ladder; 76% of the companies by at least one phase, and 62% by at least two phases. Success and failure factors were described. Conclusion: Active training and coaching helped the participating companies to improve their chemical risk management, and to avoid making mistakes when using and applying Stoffenmanager. The use of validated tools embedded in a community platform appears to support companies to organize and structure their chemical risk management in a business-wise manner, but much depends upon motivated occupational health and safety (OHS) professionals, management support, and willingness to invest time and means

Stoffenmanager exposure model: Development of a quantitative algorithm

In The Netherlands, the web-based tool called 'Stoffenmanager' was initially developed to assist small- and medium-sized enterprises to prioritize and control risks of handling chemical products in their workplaces. The aim of the present study was to explore the accuracy of the Stoffenmanager exposure algorithm. This was done by comparing its semi-quantitative exposure rankings for specific substances with exposure measurements collected from several occupational settings to derive a quantitative exposure algorithm. Exposure data were collected using two strategies. First, we conducted seven surveys specifically for validation of the Stoffenmanager. Second, existing occupational exposure data sets were collected from various sources. This resulted in 378 and 320 measurements for solid and liquid scenarios, respectively. The Spearman correlation coefficients between Stoffenmanager scores and exposure measurements appeared to be good for handling solids (rs = 0.80, N = 378, P 10 Pa (rs = 0.56, N = 104, P < 0.0001) and non-volatile substances with a vapour pressure ≤10 Pa (rs = 0.53, N = 216, P < 0.0001). The mixed-effect regression models with natural log-transformed Stoffenmanager scores as independent parameter explained a substantial part of the total exposure variability (52% for solid scenarios and 76% for liquid scenarios). Notwithstanding the good correlation, the data show substantial variability in exposure measurements given a certain Stoffenmanager score. The overall performance increases our confidence in the use of the Stoffenmanager as a generic tool for risk assessment. The mixed-effect regression models presented in this paper may be used for assessment of so-called reasonable worst case exposures. This evaluation is considered as an ongoing process and when more good quality data become available, the analyses described in this paper will be expanded. Based on these analyses, the algorithm will be refined in the near future. © The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Occupational Hygiene Society