A task exposure database for use in the alumina and primary aluminium industry

A task exposure database (TED) was developed to facilitate data collation for construction of a task exposure matrix (TEM) for Healthwise, a series of studies on cancer and respiratory morbidity in the alumina and primary aluminium industry. Following the construction of job classifications for the eight study sites, the site hygienists identified all historical air monitoring time-weighted average (TWA) data, from their respective sites. The earliest data were sampled in the late 1970s, and over 17,000 personal samples were recorded over the eight sites over a twenty-year period. TED, a Microsoft Access database, was developed for use by site occupational hygienists to collate these exposure data across the mines, refineries and smelters. All data conforming to strict criteria for use were recorded using TED and provided to the study group. Following the individual data point entry, a calculator program in TED systematically calculated the geometric means, arithmetic means, and maximum and minimum results at the task level. Other features of TED included fields for flagging "significant changes" and "stepwise changes" in exposure. TED established a standardised means of data collation that later formed the basis for the construction of a TEM for the study. A TEM is similar to a job exposure matrix (JEM) except that the basic unit of categorization is at the task level instead of at the job level. Both a TEM and JEM have been constructed independently for Healthwise. The possible reduction of exposure misclassification and improvement in validity of exposure characterization with the use of the TEM, is currently under investigation. The Healthwise TEM consists of annual TWA and peak data results for each site for various airborne contaminants, including fluorides, coal tar pitch volatiles, sulfur dioxide, inspirable dust, alumina dust, bauxite dust, and oil mist. Construction of the TEM for the Healthwise study was completed in late 1998 and consists of over 33,700 TWA years of task exposure data.