[Strategies for controlling chemical risk factors in work environments]

The strategy involves an initial phase during which environment characteristics, substances used, apparatus involved and working procedures are investigated. Such information is used to define areas to be monitored, periods of sampling and number of measurements to be performed. The adopted procedure takes into account the results obtained on an interaction basis. The scheme makes use of a decisional criterion based on the one sided tolerance limit (OTL) test in order to estimate risk evaluation trends. Each decision is based on a simultaneous control action on ambient and on men. The procedure minimizes the number of measurements, makes effective use of technical and human resources, reduces decisional errors in establishing engineering techniques and can be readily applied to different situations.