Assessing daily exposure risk of pig barn workers to airborne contaminants

Posted in: Pork Insight Articles, Prairie Swine Centre by admin on August 11, 2016

Authors: Alvin Alvarado and Bernardo Predicala

Reference: Centered on Swine Fall 2014

The goals of this study were to assess the occupational exposure risk of barn workers to dust and gasses while performing their assigned daily tasks in the barn, and to identify specific activities in the barn that pose high occupational exposure risk to workers. Subjects were outfitted with monitoring equipment throughout the day during their various tasks.

The occupational exposure of barn workers to respirate dust, ammonia and hydrogen sulphide while performing their assigned daily tasks in the barn was generally below the respective time-weighted average (TWA) exposure limits for each parameter. The variation in the time-weighted average of the airborne contaminants was dependent on the tasks the workers performed during any specific workday. Activities like feeding, weighing pigs, and draining manure pits, have a higher likelihood to result in exposures that exceed the 15-min threshold limit value and this, pose greater occupational exposure risk to barn workers.

assessing risk of airborne contaminants Alvarado

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