Occupational health risk assessment of the benzene exposure industries: a comprehensive scoring method through 4 health risk assessment models

Benzene is one of the most common occupational hazards in the working environment which was in the list of group 1 carcinogens. This study applied four occupational health risk assessment models: EPA model; MOM model of Singapore; the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) model, and the Technical guide WS/T 777-2021 of China. The models assessed both non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic effects of benzene for 1629 employees in 50 factories in Jiangsu Province (China) who were exposed to benzene in the working environment and analysis the risk between industries by principal component analysis (PCA) method. The highest occupational health hazard of benzene among the five industries is petroleum processing industry, then followed by chemical products manufacturing industry, special equipment manufacturing industry, wood processing and products industry, and at last the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry. The population of abnormal routine blood parameters in the subjects was mostly in the wood products industry group, and the concentration of benzene in wood products industry group is the lowest in 5 groups. The industries with low exposure concentration have higher blood abnormality rates; this may be caused by the fact that blood damage is more secretive under low occupational health risk.

Automated summary

This study applied four occupational health risk assessment models to analyze the non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic effects of benzene exposure in the working environment for 1629 employees in 50 factories in Jiangsu Province, China. The highest occupational health hazard of benzene was found in the petroleum processing industry, while the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry had the lowest hazard.