A Study on the Manganese Exposure and Health Hazard among Manganese Manufacturing Woman Workers

망간취급 여성근로자의 망간폭로 및 건강위해에 관한 연구

To study the health hazards and exposure status of manganese among female manganese workers, authors conducted airborne, blood and urine manganese concentration measurements, questionnaire and neurological examinations on 80 manganese-handling productive female workers(exposed group) in a manganese manufacturing facto in Pohang city and 127 productive female workers not handling manganese(control group) in other factories in the Pohang city. The results are; 1. Geometric mean concentrations of manganese in air and urine were $0.98mg/m^3\;and\;4.12{\mu}g/l$ and arithmetic mean concentration of manganese in blood was $6.94{\mu}g/dl$ in exposed group, significantly higher than those of control group(p<0.05). However, clinical and laboratory findings in exposed group were not statistically different from those of control group. 2. As age increase, positive rates of clinical symptoms also increased in the exposed group. However, in older aged group, the positive rates of symptoms and signs were statistically different from those of control group. We observed the same tendency in the positive rates of the neurological examinations. 3. There was statistically significant correlation between airborne and urine manganese concentrations(r=0.61, p<0.01) while there was no statistically significant correlation between airborne and blood manganese concentrations(r=0.29, p>0.05). The results suggest that urine manganese concentration was the best appropriate biomarker to estimate the exposure to manganese in respect to clinical symptoms and signs. In the analysis of correlation between urine and airborne manganese concentrations, it is required to adjust the present permissible exposure level(PEL) of airborne manganese.