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Respirable quartz exposure on two medium-sized farms in southern Mozambique
José C Franque Mirembo1, Andrew J Swanepoel, David Rees
1University of Eduardo Mondlane, Maputo, Mozambique. jcffrank@yahoo.com
Background:
Little is known about the potential for overexposure to respirable quartz in farming, in most parts of the world.
Objectives:
To measure respirable dust and quartz exposure of tractor operators on two medium-sized dry climate farms.
Methods:
This is a descriptive cross-sectional study of dust exposure of four tractor operators. Farms were selected by convenience sampling. The MDHS 14/3 and FTIR MDHS 101 HSE methods were used to measure dust and to analyze the mass of quartz in dust, respectively.
Results:
Seventy respirable dust measurements were done. Respirable dust and quartz ranged from 0·01 to 2·88 and 0·001 to 0·30 mg/m(3), respectively. All operators had at least one respirable quartz exposure above 0·1 mg/m(3). Only 17% of respirable quartz concentrations were lower than the ACGIH TLV of 0·025 mg/m(3).
Conclusion:
The potential for overexposure to respirable quartz was demonstrated. There was a great deal of exposure variability on these farms which has implications for sampling strategies for dust in farming.
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