There may also eye irritation and runny nose kogevinas
You should then make a comment on general health and lifestyle factors that could make workers more vulnerable to the topic condition or related conditions. For example if the disease is related to the lungs one of the things to think about is smoking, also you need to think about the wider determinates of health, this section needs to be linked to literature.
Finally, make suggestions around steps which an individual and the employing organisation could take in order to protect the workforce from acquiring the condition in the first place. Here you could think about; risk assessment, COSHH, RIDDOR again this needs to be linked to literature
Occupational Asthma
The disease, which is taken into consideration for this report, is occupational asthma. Occupational asthma is the condition of asthma, which is caused by or gets worst by elements and substances at the workplace. It is most common reason of adult onset asthma. It makes up 9 to 15% of the cases of asthma in the people in their working age. There are some industries in UK, which 10% of the total employees develop the symptoms of occupational asthma. These substances can affect the human health in different ways; like an allergic reaction, irritant reaction and impact of chemicals (Bernstein, 2011). Allergic reaction includes the people with allergies, who have the allergic asthma. An irritant reaction includes the person, who reacts to smoking with the asthma. The last is the reaction, which results from the natural chemicals, like histamines in the lungs, which can result an attack of asthma. Occupational asthma is also called work-related asthma.
In United Kingdom, more than 5 million people are recently having the treatment for asthma. This data shows that 1 in every 12 adults and 1 in every 11 children are suffering from this disease. It is very common in the women in comparison to man. From all the data, approx. 5% of the people are having severe occupational asthma. In United Kingdom, study was conducted under two schemes, i.e. SWORD and IIDB (Health and Safety Executive, 2016). According to the SWORD, there were 117 forecasted new cases of the occupational asthma reported in comparison to 132 in the year 2014 and average of 220 cases per year over the last era. For IIDB, there were 70 cases of this disease evaluated in comparison to 70 in 2014 and an average of 113 patients per year in the last decade. According to the study of IIDB, there are 115 cases of the workers in last ten years, who caused the occupational asthma due to the wood dust.
he below given graph shows the data base and trends in the occupational asthma in the population of United Kingdom (De Groene, Pal, & Beach, 2011). The graph shows that the number of cases of occupational asthma are decreasing in the current years. In 2008, the number of people injured by asthma was more in comparison to other years (Health and Safety Executive, 2016).
This rule requires that the employers should control the exposures to harmful substances to protect the health of employees. They must assess the risk from the harmful elements. The wood workers are taking the wood dust and other agents by breathing and skin contact. Complying the regulations require to consider the replacement of the hazardous products with less hazardous substances. The employers must keep all the controls in the organization in a better working order (Sigsgaard & Heederik, 2011). The wood workers in the factory or outlets must wear the protective gloves and eye wear. There must be administrative controls like; good supervision. The factories must have good ventilation.
According to HSE, the employers should implement the process of risk assessment. In the process of risk assessment, first the employer must collect the information about the harmful substances and work practices. After that, they must evaluate their risks to health and then decide on the required measures to follow the regulations of COSHH. COSHH has established some standards, which an employer must meet when it requires the workers to work with the agents, which can cause occupational asthma in the wood workers. If the employer does not follow these standards, then it creates a basis for the employees to claim for the asthma (Tarlo & Liss, 2010).
Conducting the questionnaire on regular basis and testing the lung function on a regular basis; this must be done by an occupational nurse and doctor.
Maintaining health records of workers.
Ayres, J.G., Boyd, R., Cowie, H. & Hurley, J.F, 2011, Costs of occupational asthma in the UK, Thorax, 66 (2).
Bernstein, D.I., 2011, Occupational Asthma, An Issue of Immunology and Allergy Clinics - E-Book, Elsevier Health Sciences.
Jekel, J.F, 2007, Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Preventive Medicine, Elsevier Health Sciences.
Kogevinas M, Zock J, Jarvis D et al. 2007, Exposure to substances in the workplace and new-onset asthma: an international prospective population-based study (ECRHS-II). Lancet 370:336-341.
Vallières E, Pintos J, Parent ME, & Siemiatycki J, 2015, Occupational exposure to wood dust and risk of lung cancer in two population-based case-control studies in Montreal, Environ Health.
Wiggans, R.E., Evans, G., Fishwick, D. & Barber, C.M., 2016, Asthma in furniture and wood processing workers: a systematic review, Occupational Medicine, vol. 66, pp. 193-201.