Follow-up and evaluation of medical state of employees in selected operations of automobile industry

Summary

The problems of hearing impairment from noise in the automobile production industry have not been sufficiently covered in our recent medical literature. The main goal of the investigation was to evaluate hearing disorders in relation to the work at risk performed in excessively noisy environment of two mechanical engineering production plants in Slovakia, where components for assembly are produced and supplied to several automobile production plants. In the group of 195 employees at the age of 37.5 ± 11.7 years (M ± SD), medical preventive entry and follow-up examinations after a certain period of time from the beginning of work in the company were made in the period, when a contractual collaboration of the production plants with the Occupation Medical Service. The determination of medical capability for work, associated with the risk factors (in noise risk the classification into Category III and IV of work art risk) could be established only after the first evaluation of Preventive Medical Examinations, when the actual noise risk in the observed plants could be supplemented with the work at risk in the previous workplaces of the employees.

In the first group of the cohort, 33 employees, men at the age of 44.6 ± 10.6 years produced components of motor vehicles and their engines by welding exhaust pipes for automobile large scale producers. In 9 of them the total hearing loss exceeded 10% according to Fowler and 25.3 ± 17.7 % according to audiometric examination, while exposure to noise in these men combined 23.0 ± 5.3 years of work in noise environment previously and 4.9 ± 2.0 years of exposure to noise at the present workplace.

The second younger group encountered 162 employees (87 men at the age of 35.4 ± 11.0 years and 75 women at the age of 37.31 ± 11.7 years) who had worked in the pressed down cold-forming of metals (category IV of the noise factors), in welding of mould components and in hand-operated spray gun varnishing (category III). In 8 of them (one woman included) total heating loss exceeded 10% according to Fowler and 17.3 ± 7.8%, according to audiometric examination, while noise exposure in this group was a combination of 8.6 ± 7.3 year-long noise exposure before the last workplace and 1.9+1.2 year-long work in noise environment at the last workplace.

In the first (entry) examination of the whole group, not considering the relatively short period of noise exposure at the previous workplaces, 17 cases of hearing impairment with total hearing loss according toe Flower exceeding 10-59%, while four persons of this group were subsequently laid off the noise risk for contraindication to work permanently. The occupational disease from noise was notified in one of them.

The authors draw attention to unavoidable examination of entry medical examinations before starting the employment, with adequate documentation of exposure to the work risk factors in the past. It is of great importance for correct assessment of medical capability for work considering the expected risk factor of working environment also in relation to decreasing health damage of the employees. Last, but not least it represent a benefit for the employers to prevent his liability in the origin of occupational diseases, which may have been dominantly from previous exposures of the work risk factors.

KEYWORDS:
health impairment – audiometry – noise – BMI – smoking – entry and follow-up examinations – preventive medical examinations related to work