Swine Worker Exposure Assessment
Project Description
The long-term goal of this project is to protect workers from inhalation hazards in swine confinement buildings. The primary objective is to identify both tasks and building characteristics that cause significantly elevated concentrations of gases and dusts in these buildings. Our central hypothesis is that dust and gas exposure levels are highly variable because of the many different work tasks associated with rearing swine and the varied characteristics of the buildings in which these tasks are performed. A secondary hypothesis is that the contaminant dose received by a worker may be reduced substantially through occasional respirator use when performing specific tasks that are associated with high dust exposures. Our specific aims are:
- Determine the relationship between work task and worker exposure in swine confinement buildings. We assess the short-term worker exposure with personal aerosol photometers, which will then be related to work task primarily via self-reported log books.
- Identify swine confinement building characteristics that influence contaminant concentration levels. This will allow us to better understand the temporal and spatial variability of contaminant concentrations by measuring or observing these factors while performing the work in Aim 1.
- Establish the effectiveness of using respirators to reduce exposures when performing work tasks in swine buildings. We measure declines in respiratory function after workers perform a variety of tasks relative to declines measured before and after implementation of respirator use.
In phase 1, we are completing the personal and area measurements needed to complete Aims 1 and 2. In phase 2, we will go back to the subjects analyzed in phase 1 with additional questionnaires and sampling to determine the effectiveness of respirator use while working in these buildings. Our rationale for this approach is that an exposure prevention program based on limited respiratory use will reduce the prevalence of acute and chronic lung ailments in the swine industry. Furthermore, we believe that this approach without consideration for additional building control measures will be easy to adopt by industry because it will have little negative impact on an operator’s profit margin.
Personal air sampling equipment
carried in a backpack.
Project Officers
Patrick T. O’Shaughnessy, PhD, Principal Investigator
College of Public Health
The University of Iowa
Oakdale Campus, 137 IREH
Iowa City, Iowa 52242
Telephone: 319-335-4202
Fax: 319-335-4225
Email: patrick-oshaughnessy@uiowa.edu
Kelley Donham, DVM, MS, Co-Investigator
Thomas Peters, PhD
William Heitbrink, PhD
Peter Thorne, PhD
Ann Stromquist, PhD, Coordinator
Craig Taylor, MS, Field Research Asst
Geena Moore, Research Asst
Nervana Metwali, PhD, Lab Research Asst
Kevin Kelly, PhD, Data Analyst
Ralph Altmaier, Data Collection RA