A Citizen-Science Approach to Occupational Hazard Assessment

摘要 职业健康领域的全面暴露评估历来受到以下因素的限制： 技术、金融和人力因素的结合。个人采样的成本和复杂性 技术限制了单个工业测量师（IH）最多进行大约10次个人测量， 空气中的辐射许多专家可以一起工作来产生更大的暴露数据集;然而， 在目前的模式下，评估设施中每一名工人的照射成本过高。这些 这些限制阻碍了我们识别有过度暴露风险的工人的能力;它们还导致不精确的效果 职业流行病学的估计。总的来说，这些限制导致健康状况不佳的风险更大 工人的成果。 该项目旨在开发新的技术和方法，以评估工人接触 职业性空气污染物。我们将开发一种可穿戴的气溶胶和蒸汽危害暴露监测器， 立即部署“开箱即用”，只需最少的用户培训。此外，监视器将被设计为 数十到数百种不同的空气传播化合物的参考质量测量。我们还寻求 通过进一步利用工人的支持和参与来改变工业卫生的做法 通过公民科学的方法进行危险识别和接触评估。成功 这项研究的完成将使个人暴露测量的样本量大大增加 这反过来又将促进更好的专业判断，更有效的危险控制， 更有效的流行病学和改善工人健康。第二个目标是展示 公民科学，以提高工人对工作场所安全文化的理解和参与。项目 有两个目的。首先是开发一种简单、廉价、“智能”的采样装置， 评估个人暴露于气溶胶和蒸汽危害。该装置将很小，易于部署 同时包含满足可接受标准性能所需的质量保证特征 参考方法（主动流量控制、故障监控、用户合规性）。第二个目标是进行一系列 实地部署，以评估新技术在与公民科学方法一起使用时， 促进工人、组织、 和工业卫生师。我们假设，公民科学的方法将改变工人-和 与职业危害评估和缓解相关的组织层面的态度和行为。我们也 假设工业卫生学家将提高他们准确分配工人进行暴露控制的能力， 当与我们生成的综合暴露数据一起呈现时，成功完成本 这项工作将验证工作场所危险评估的新技术，同时展示公民的效用。 以科学方法提高工作场所的健康和安全知识和意识。

Abstract Comprehensive exposure assessment in the field of occupational health has been limited, historically, by a combination of technological, financial, and human factors. The cost and complexity of personal sampling technology limits a single industrial hygienist (IH) to making, at most, about 10 measurements of personal airborne exposure each day. Many hygienists can work together to produce a larger exposure dataset; however, the cost to assess exposures for every worker in a facility is exorbitant under the current paradigm. These limitations hinder our ability to identify workers at risk of overexposure; they also lead to imprecise effect estimates in occupational epidemiology. Collectively, these limitations lead to greater risks of poor health outcomes among workers. This project seeks to develop new technologic and methodologic approaches for assessing worker exposure to occupational air pollutants. We will develop a wearable exposure monitor for aerosol and vapor hazards that is immediately deployable “out of the box” with minimal user training. Further, the monitor will be designed to take reference-quality measurements of tens to potentially hundreds of different airborne compounds. We also seek to transform the practice of industrial hygiene by further leveraging support and participation of the workers themselves through a citizen-science approach to hazard identification and exposure assessment. Successful completion of this research will enable dramatically greater sample sizes for personal exposure measurements in the workplace, which, in turn, will promote more better professional judgement, more efficient hazard control, more effective epidemiology, and improved worker health. A second goal is to demonstrate the potential for citizen science to improve worker comprehension of and engagement in workplace safety culture. The project has two aims. The first is to develop a simple, inexpensive, “smart” sampling device for comprehensive assessment of personal exposures to aerosol and vapor hazards. The device will be small and easy to deploy and wear while containing quality-assurance features necessary to meet the performance of accepted standard reference methods (active flow control, fault monitoring, user compliance). The second aim is to conduct a series of field deployments to evaluate whether the new technology, when used with a citizen science approach, can promote better engagement in and knowledge of workplace health and safety among workers, organizations, and industrial hygienists. We hypothesize that the citizen-science approach will change worker- and organizational-level attitudes and behaviors relevant to occupational hazard assessment and mitigation. We also hypothesize that industrial hygienists will improve their ability to accurately assign workers to exposure control categories, when presented with the comprehensive exposure data we generate. Successful completion of this work will validate a new technology for workplace hazard assessment while demonstrating the utility of a citizen science approach to increase knowledge and awareness of health and safety in the workplace.