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Guest Editor
Occupational Health Division, School of Public Health, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2391, South Africa
Interests: exposure science; exposome; sampling strategy; exposure control; aerosols; skin contamination; health risk analysis
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Occupational exposure studies often focus on assessing inhalation exposure by measuring shift time-weighted-average (TWA) concentrations of hazardous chemicals or estimates of skin contamination. Conventional health risk assessment compares these TWA concentrations with a threshold limit value, e.g., an OEL, to distinguish between ‘unsafe’ and ‘safe’ exposure scenarios. In many cases, however, insufficient information is collected to evaluate the health risks of individual workers associated with these exposure scenarios. First, between-worker TWA- concentration variances and associated intake doses are often unknown, and therefore, there are potential differences in health risks. Second, task-based monitoring is mostly lacking; thus, identifying sources, peak exposures, and tasks most contributing to the TWA concentration is not feasible. Third, intake dose-related health risk estimates have been scarce in occupational health. Fourth, there is growing consensus that individuals' health risks should be approached holistically. Consequently, conventional occupational exposure and risk assessment have severe limitations regarding the exposure pathway and the ability to assess the risk of individual workers. 

This Special Issue aims to attract the most recent advances in multidisciplinary research connected to research in the fields of exposure science, occupational hygiene, and risk assessment in occupational settings. Research articles are invited on topics associated with exposure pathway analysis, far-field -near field and source-receptor exposure modeling, internal thresholds of toxicological concern, quantification of intake, working life exposome, and total worker exposure health.

Prof. Dr. Derk Brouwer
Guest Editor

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • exposure pathway
  • source-receptor
  • toxicological threshold
  • risk assessment
  • workplace
  • exposome

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

17 pages, 792 KiB  
Article
Health Risk Assessment of Nail Technicians in the Formal and Informal Sectors of Johannesburg, South Africa
by Goitsemang Keretetse, Gill Nelson and Derk Brouwer
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2025, 22(3), 330; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph22030330 - 24 Feb 2025
Viewed by 691
Abstract
Exposure to volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in nail salons poses risks of acute and chronic health effects for nail technicians. The objectives of this study were to investigate differences in VOC exposure and self-reported symptoms among formal and informal nail technicians and assess [...] Read more.
Exposure to volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in nail salons poses risks of acute and chronic health effects for nail technicians. The objectives of this study were to investigate differences in VOC exposure and self-reported symptoms among formal and informal nail technicians and assess the non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic risks using a probabilistic approach. A questionnaire was administered to 54 formal and 60 informal nail technicians to elicit information on sociodemographic characteristics, work conditions, and self-reported symptoms. Passive sampling was employed to measure 60 personal breathing zone concentrations of VOCs among 20 nail technicians (both formal and informal) over three consecutive days, along with 29 passive samples for formaldehyde in the informal sector. All VOC concentrations, except formaldehyde, were below occupational exposure limits. Sixty percent of the informal nail technicians and fifty-two percent of the formal nail technicians reported health-related symptoms; however, the difference was not statistically significant (p > 0.05). The median and 95th percentile non-cancer risks exceeded the hazard coefficient for 2-propanol in all technicians and MMA among informal technicians. The benzene and formaldehyde cancer risk estimates (medians and 95th percentiles) exceeded the US Environmental Protection Agency cancer risk threshold of 1 × 10−6. These findings indicate that nail technicians are at risk of developing acute and chronic health effects from long-term low-level exposure to VOCs. Full article
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