Health risk assessment for exposure to low levels of dangerous chemicals mixtures in research laboratories

This work was aimed at assessing the risk for the health of workers in research laboratories where exposure to dangerous chemicals well below the threshold limit values and to their mixtures can occur. Method: The chemical risk assessment was performed in the case of volatile organic compounds by using the combination of a preliminary risk evaluation by algorithm followed by a risk characterization by measurements. The algorithm applied was “A.R.Chi.Me.D.E.” (Analysis of chemical risk by exposure data, by Pietrantonio E., D’Orsi F., Guerriero G.), consisting of a semi-quantitative evaluation by means of mathematic relationships; the exposure measurements were performed by active personal sampling on charcoal tubes and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry analysis. Results of the study: The results showed that the proposed chemical risk assessment is a very helpful strategy in describing the scenery in the case of multi-exposure to low levels of dangerous chemicals in research laboratories, where the risk assessment is a hard task. The algorithm was able to evaluate, over the inhalation, the effects on the cute and the combined effects on target organs, including the inner ear in the case of ototoxic agents. The proposed method allowed to evaluate the health risk, either in the case of the effect of a single dangerous chemical or in the case of the exposure to mixtures, and to characterize the efficacy of the specific preventive measures in use.