Health Hazard Surveillance by Industrial Workers

Our plain-English summary of Health Hazard Surveillance by Industrial Workers, by D.H. Wegman, L. Boden, C. Levenstein (1975).

The study

• Authors: D.H. Wegman, L. Boden, C. Levenstein
• Published: American Journal of Public Health, Volume 65 No1. January 1975
• Type of article: Journal article
• Our copy: from Johns-Manville's own medical library. The article is still under copyright, so we describe it here rather than post it.

In plain English

This article described a training project, not a research study. It reported no disease rates. Starting in March 1970, Urban Planning Aid, Inc., a nonprofit group in eastern Massachusetts, ran an Occupational Health and Safety Project. The project trained industrial workers and union members to find, report and correct hazards at their own workplaces. It began with an electrical workers union of about 10,000 members. After 2 years it was helping over 20 local unions, including workers in asbestos products fabrication. The authors gave examples. At one asbestos products plant, the company refused a physician representing the workers access to chest X-rays it had taken. The union and the physician instead used lung function studies, without a control group, to measure how severe the health problem was. The authors cited a separate paper for the details. In another case, a union flyer warned brake drum relining workers about asbestos, and the workers' reaction led to controls. The authors concluded that workers must have far greater control over their working conditions if hazards are to be eliminated.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Descriptive account of a worker health and safety training and technical-assistance project, with examples from individual workplaces. Not a research study.
• Who was studied: Industrial workers and local unions in eastern Massachusetts, from March 1970. The target population was ultimately the half million industrial workers in the area. The project began with an electrical workers union of about 10,000 members and after 2 years was assisting over 20 local unions.
• Exposure: Various workplace hazards, including asbestos (in an asbestos products plant and in brake drum relining), enzyme additives in detergents, mercury in fluorescent lamp manufacture, noise, cutting oil, and a combustible solvent. No asbestos fiber type or dose was given.
• Main results:
  • The project's first effort was with a large local electrical workers union.
  • After 2 years the project staff was assisting over 20 local unions in industries including steel, clothing, auto, electrical equipment, lamp production, asbestos products fabrication, tunnel construction, industrial painting and meat packing.
  • At one asbestos products plant, the company refused a physician representing the workers access to chest X-rays it had taken over a series of years.
  • At that plant, the union and the physician used lung function studies alone, without a control population. The authors reported that new methods of statistical analysis of such data could show how severe the problem was, and that this showed it was feasible to study occupational lung disease with the cooperation of workers alone. The details were in a separate cited paper.
  • A union flyer warned brake drum relining workers of the potential dangers of the asbestos they worked with. Their strong reaction led to labor-management discussions and to controls being put in place.
  • After a 2-hour noise session, two workers surveyed a screw machine room with a borrowed noise meter. By the end of the week the three noisiest machines had been repaired.
  • In a gear manufacturing plant, workers who had developed dermatitis filed a grievance about a newly changed cutting oil. The oil was replaced and the dermatitis disappeared.
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that workers themselves must have a far greater measure of control over their working conditions if workplace hazards are to be eliminated. They also concluded that the project's experience indicated that help from health professionals can make a valuable contribution to this goal.

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Chest X-Ray.

Browse return to medical research.