Wood dust has been classified as carcinogenic to humans and the association with nasal cancer risk has been observed in a large number of epidemiological studies.
OBJECTIVES:
The aim of this study is to summarise data about occupational exposure levels to wood dust in Italy and to examine some exposure determinants.
METHODS:
Exposure measurements on wood dust were extracted from the SIREP (Italian Information System on Occupational Exposure to Carcinogens) database between 1996-2006. Descriptive statistics were calculated for exposure-related variables using univariate analyses. The prevalence of elevated exposure levels was estimated overall and for some industrial sectors. A multifactorial analysis of variance was performed to determine which factors influenced exposure levels to wood dust.
RESULTS:
The total number of exposure measurements (n) reported is 10,837, which refer to 10,528 workers and 1181 companies. The overall arithmetic mean is 1.44 mg/m(3) and the geometric mean is 0.97 mg/m(3). Industrial sectors at high risk are "manufacture of wood and wood products" (n = 5539) as well as "manufacture of furniture" (n = 4347). About 74% of exposure measurements report a value