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KMID : 0895420090190030307
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Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Enviromental Hygiene
2009 Volume.19 No. 3 p.307 ~ p.320
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Review on Occupational Exposure To Asbestos in Korea
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Park Dong-Uk
Choi Sang-Jun
Yoon Chung-Sik
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Abstract
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This study was conducted not only to review airborne asbestos levels reported in workplaces in Korea, but also to analyze their levels according to various characteristics All asbestos concentration reported as either geometric mean (GM) and geometric standard deviation (GSD) or ranges were transformed to arithmetic mean to estimate exposure level. In addition, weighted arithmetic means (WAMs) were calculated to weigh asbestos levels based on the different number of samples. Differences of asbestos levels among several characteristics such as industry type, decade, operation and sampling and analytical methods were analyzed using analysis of variance (ANOVA). The number of articles studying asbestos levels from workplaces was found to be 9 including two report types. Five of those were reported prior to 1990s and rest of them after 1990s. Only several industries such as asbestos textile, asbestos cement, brake-lining repair shops were studied, while various industries using asbestos or asbestos containing materials (ACMs) were not studied. ANOVA found that asbestos exposure levels (WAM = 5.26 f/cc) reported from textile industry were significantly higher than those from other industries (cement = 0.63 f/cc, brake-lining = 0.2 ? 0.47 f/cc) (p < 0.0001). Average exposure levels studied prior to the 1990s(3.13 f/cc) were found to be significantly higher than that (0.86f/cc) after the 1990s (p<0.0001). All WAMs reported until the 1994 were found to be higher than the current occupational exposure limits (o.1 f/cc). This study recommends that retrospective exposure to asbestos based on various industry types and operations should be assessed.
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KEYWORD
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asbestos, asbestos textile, asbestos cement, asbestos containing materials (ACMs)
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