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Annals of Occupational Hygiene Advance Access originally published online on March 15, 2008
Annals of Occupational Hygiene 2008 52(3):195-205; doi:10.1093/annhyg/men003
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© 2008 The Author(s).
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Health Survey of Workers Exposed to Mixed Solvent and Ergonomic Hazards in Footwear and Equipment Factory Workers in Thailand

Lori Todd1,*, Sitthichok Tony Puangthongthub2, Kathleen Mottus1, Gary Mihlan3 and Steven Wing4

1 Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill NC 27599, USA
2 Department of General Sciences, Chulalongkorn University, Prathumwam, Bangkok 10300, Thailand
3 Agricultural Division, Bayer Corporation, 8400 Hawthorne Road, PO Box 4913, Kansas City, MO 64120, USA
4 Department of Epidemiology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA

* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Tel: +919-219-5603; fax: +919-966-4711; e-mail: todd{at}cs.unc.edu

A cross-sectional health study was performed at four footwear and one equipment factory in Thailand to evaluate the prevalence of chemical- and ergonomic-related symptoms in Thai factory workers and to investigate associations between these symptoms and exposures to organic solvents, isocyanates and ergonomic risks. A 10-page health questionnaire was administered to 1784 workers across the four footwear and equipment factories. A total of 1675 questionnaires were returned, yielding a 94% response rate. The questionnaires asked about age, gender, use of chemicals, use of personal protective equipment and health outcomes. Without exception, the percentages of workers reporting symptoms after being hired were higher than those reporting symptoms before being hired for all the factories. The highest symptom percentages were related to ergonomic stressors. Multiple logistic regression was used to calculate adjusted prevalence odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals. This study showed that adverse health effects experienced by footwear and equipment factory workers are associated with occupational exposures to chemicals (volatile organic solvents and water-based adhesives) and ergonomic hazards.

Keywords: equipment factories • ergonomics • exposure assessment • footwear factories • isocyanates • questionnaires

Received August 7, 2007; in final form January 8, 2008


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