Journal of Occupational Health and Epidemiology
Volume:6 Issue: 3, Summer 2017

Petrol station attendants are a high risk group and are exposed to occupational hazards with no control over the length and frequency of safety regulation. The study aimed to assess the knowledge of petrol station attendants about the occupational hazards they are exposed to and the safety practices used to prevent them.
The study was carried out in Sokoto metropolis, Nigeria and it was a descriptive cross-sectional study. Using a multi-staged sampling technique, 108 petrol station attendants were recruited for the study. Data was collected using a semi-structured questionnaire adapted from published articles which was administered to the respondents by an interviewer. The data was imputed and analyzed using SPSS software.
Sixty-two (59.0%) respondents had poor knowledge while only 16 (15.1%) had negative attitude. Seventy-two (72.4%) of respondents knew that volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were harmful to health and a good proportion knew about work safety practices such as they ought not to smoke cigarettes at the workplace (92.4%). Only 2.8% of respondents used hand gloves while 19.4% used apron always.
The finding of poor knowledge of VOCs with very few of them adopting workplace safety practices underscores the need for employers in this sector to identify workplace hazards, adopt safety measures to curb them, train new employees and retrain staff on safety measures, and provide personal protective equipment (PPE) for daily use.

Anxiety disorders are among the most common types of psychological disorders in the world. Anxiety is an inseparable part of every person’s life and it seems that it is experienced more severely by university students. The present study aimed to investigate the prevalence of anxiety and its related factors among environmental and occupational health students.
In this descriptive cross-sectional study in 2015, the participants were selected through census-based sampling; all the Bachelor students (continuous and discontinuous) of environmental and occupational health (141 respondents) from Qazvin University of Medical Sciences, Iran, participated in this research. Data were collected using a demographic questionnaire and Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory measuring respondents’ level of anxiety. The collected data were analyzed by independent samples t-test, analysis of variance, and Pearson correlation in SPSS software.
The prevalence rates of state and trait anxiety in the sample were 29.1% and 20.6%, respectively. Furthermore, 29.1% of students of environmental health and 57.9% of students of occupational health suffered from moderate to high levels of anxiety. The greatest prevalence of trait anxiety among students of environmental and occupational health was recorded for below moderate anxiety with indices of 72.8% and 84.2%, respectively. On the other hand, no significant relationship was observed between students’ year of study (ranging from the first to the fourth year) and state/trait anxiety. However, the results of Pearson correlation showed that there was a significant negative relationship between students’ grade point average and trait anxiety.
Anxiety among university students of environmental and occupational health range from moderate to high. Some measures should be taken to reduce this level of anxiety.

Road accidents and their resulting deaths are important issues in the Iranian society. Identifying the distribution of mortality as a result of road accidents has a significant role in preventing this problem. The aim of this study was to investigate the frequency of road deaths in Southern Kerman Province, Iran, from 2012 to 2015.
In this cross-sectional study, the injured individuals who died due to road accidents were entered into the study by census sampling method. After entering the data into the statistical software, the frequency of the studied variables was presented in the form of text and table.
In this study, the frequency of deaths was higher among motor vehicle drivers (44.73%), and in cases with head injury (40.68%) and automobiles (68.85%), and in accidents in the spring and autumn (respectively, 28.28% and 25.66%) compared to other groups.
Since victims with head injuries and drivers of vehicles had the highest frequency of death in this study, it seems that increasing the use of protective equipment (belts and helmet) has a significant role in reducing the rate of mortality due to driving accidents in this area.

Hazardous chemical agents in the welding operation are a mixture of metal fumes and toxic gases, the inhalation of which causes adverse health effects among welders. The emission of gases in the workplace is a logical cause for concern regarding the potential development of respiratory disease. The aim of the present study was to determine the concentration values of gases discharged during arc welding and perform risk assessment through semi-quantitative chemical risk assessment ý(SQCRA) method.
This cross-sectional study was conducted in an Iranian steel mill on the 3 processes of plasma arc welding (PAW), submerged arc welding (SAW), and gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW). Direct reading instruments were used for sampling of carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen monoxide (NO), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and ozone (O3). SQCRA method was used for risk assessment of gases.
The concentrations of O3 (0.356 ppm), CO (41.642 ppm), NO (6.357 ppm), and NO2 (4.871 ppm) were found to exceed their threshold limit values (TLVs), while the concentrations of CO2 (3879.285 ppm) were below its TLV. The maximum exposure concentration of all gases, except CO2, was observed in SAW. SQCRA method showed that among the gases, the highest and least risk rating was related to ozone and nitrogen monoxide, respectively. The risk rating for CO2, CO, and NO2 was low, high, and very high, respectively.
In this study, exposure values were higher than the threshold limit values-time weighted average (TLV-TWA) and the results of risk assessment showed that control engineering should be applied and the use of respiratory protective equipment (RPE) should be made mandatory for welders especially in SAW, PAW, and GTAW processes.

Congenital hearing loss delays many aspects of a child's development, including speech and socio-cognitive development. The aim of this study was determine the results of infant hearing screening with transient evoked otoacoustic emission (TEOAE) in Moradi Hospital, Rafsanjan, Iran: 2014.
In this descriptive cross-sectional study from 6017 infants born in Niknafs Hospital in 2014, the hearing of 2743 infants was tested by TEOAE during the first 24 hours after birth. If the result TEOAE test was negative, 3 weeks later, the hearing examination was repeated. If the result of the second examination was negative, a precise hearing examination was performed with auditory brainstem response (ABR) before 3 months of age, and hearing loss cases were identified and referred to competent centers. The obtained information was presented in the form of descriptive statistics.
Of the 2743 infants, 2515 (91.69%) succeeded in the first stage test, 127 (4.63%) in the second stage test, and 16 (0.58%) in the third stage test (ABR test), showing a healthy hearing system. The results of examination with ABR indicated that 4 infants (0.14%) had mild to severe hearing loss who were introduced to specialized centers for cochlear implantation or using hearing aids.
Due to the high accuracy of screening tests, neonatal hearing impairment can be diagnosed and treated in the early days of life. Due to the availability of accurate tests for the examination of the hearing system and their low cost, hearing screening is recommended for infants at birth.

Cognitive failure is mental lapses in perception, attention, memory, and action. It occurs during routine tasks that one would usually have no difficulty in successfully completing. Cognitive performance is influenced by conditions and some individual and job characteristics and the identification of factors that affect human performance is essential to prevent human error. The purpose of this study was to evaluate cognitive failures and identify individual and job related factors in industry employees.
This cross-sectional study was conducted in 173 employees of an industry in Qom Province in Central Iran in 2016. The demographic information were collected via interviews and related questionnaires. Moreover, cognitive failures were assessed using the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire (CFQ). Data analysis was performed using factor analysis, t-test, Pearson correlation, and multiple linear regressions.
Factor analysis showed that cognitive failures have three domains (memory, attention, and action). Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the whole questionnaire was 0.89. The mean ± SD score of cognitive failures in the study group was 1.07 ± 0.55. The statistical analysis of the data revealed that there was a significant correlation between smoking, chronic disease, and work experience and cognitive failures (P Cognitive failures have a multi-dimensional structure and these dimensions have an integral relationship. It seems that chronic disease, smoking, and work experience cause an increase in the risk of cognitive failures, but this issue requires further and more comprehensive studies.

Heat stress in the steel industry is considered as a serious threat to the health and safety of workers. A wide spectrum of complications and diseases from mild disorders such as burning sensation to fatal conditions such as thermal shock may occur due to uncontrolled thermal stress. In this study, heat stress assessment was performed according to the wet-bulb globe temperature (WBGT) index among workers of a steel mill in 2014.
In this cross-sectional study, 11 stations of a steel mill were selected in which occupational exposure to heat stress was possible. The WBGT index was used to measure heat stress. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics in SPSS software.
The results showed that the highest exposure to heat stress was in the rolled operator unit (31.5 °C) and the least exposure to heat stress was in the main operator room (18.52 °C). Personnel working in the poker furnace operator, lift operator, ruffing operator, wrench operator, rolling work operator, scissors operator, and lathe operator units were exposed to higher heat stress than the threshold limit value for heat exposure recommended by the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH).
The findings of this study showed that steel mill workers are exposed to heat stress and the heat conservation planning intervention action should be conducted to reduce exposure.

In most industries, employees are in contact with various chemical agents. The objective of this study was to assess the health risks posed by occupational exposure to harmful chemical agents in a pesticide manufacturing plant in Zahedan, Iran, in 2013.
This cross-sectional study was conducted in different units of a pesticide manufacturing plant. In order to evaluate the health risks associated with occupational exposure, a method provided by the Singapore Health Department was used. After identifying the pollutants, including benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene (BTEX), CO, NO, NO2, and H2S, the degree of risk, the degree of exposure of the employees to the chemical agents, and the level of health risk were calculated.
The results showed that the highest hazard rate (HR) in all units was related to benzene and the lowest HR was related to NO and H2S. In the powder unit, the exposure rate (ER) and risk rate (RR) of NO2 were higher than other pollutants. Additionally, in different units, the RR of benzene was 2.23, which was the highest among the pollutants. Generally, the RR of all pollutants was very low (insignificant) and low.
By using information related to the risks of chemical agents and results of assessments of the health risks of exposure to chemical pollutants, different occupations can be ranked in terms of exposure to chemical risk factors. This ranking can be used to prioritize the allocation of resources for control measures and reduce exposure levels to acceptable levels.