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Is the New EN689 a Better Standard to Test Compliance With Occupational Exposure Limits in the Workplace?
Antonio D'Errico1,2, Remko Houba1,3, Hans Kromhout1
1Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences (IRAS), Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Objective:
To evaluate the performance of three measurement strategies to test compliance with occupational exposure limits of similarly exposed groups (SEGs): the old and new versions of EN689, and the BOHS-NVvA guidance on measuring compliance.
Methods:
Respirable dust exposures concentrations (n = 1383) measured within the member companies of IMA-Europe were used to compare compliance decisions between the three measurement strategies. A total of 210 SEGs of which 158 with repeated measurements were analysed. An R studio OHcomplianceStrategies package was created for the purpose.
Results:
The old EN689 strategy resulted in the highest number of compliant SEGs in the preliminary tests and statistical test (49-52% and 83%) with lower percentages of compliance with the new EN689 standard (32-44% and 71%). The percentage of non-compliant SEGs was relatively similar between the old and new EN689 for the preliminary tests (1-12% versus 6-11%). However, the new EN689 declared almost twofold more SEGs non-compliant when applying the statistical test (29% versus 17%). The BOHS-NVvA individual test showed results in between the 26% non-compliant SEGs.
Conclusion:
This study showed differences in compliance decisions between the old and new EN689, with the new EN689 being considerably more stringent and resulting in more non-compliant SEGs.
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