Lower Respirable Dust and Noise Exposure with an Open Structure Design

by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Workers at mineral processing facilities are often exposed to high levels of respirable dust and noise. Federal compliance records have shown that workers at these facilities have some of the highest respirable dust and noise exposure rates in the entire metal/nonmetal mining industry [NIOSH 1999; Stephenson and Merry 1998; Watts and Parker 1995]. Since many of these operations process ore containing some percentage of silica, the health risk to these workers is even greater because of the possibility of developing silicosis [Kreiss and Zhen 1996; Hnizdo and Sluis-Cremer 1991; Ng and Chan 1994; Rice and Herring 1995; Steenland and Brown 1995].

24 pages, Paperback

First published October 18, 2013