Bootle, England — Monitoring workers for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is the subject of a new fact sheet from Britain’s Health and Safety Executive.
The safety agency lists potential symptoms of COPD:
- A regular cough with phlegm (for more than three months of the year)
- Shortness of breath made worse by mild activity, including walking
- Wheezing
- Frequent lung infections or at least two bouts of bronchitis lasting more than three months over any two years
“Tell your occupational health professional if workers have any of the symptoms,” the agency says. “If workers smoke, help them to cut down or stop.”
Work-related exposures account for an estimated 15% of COPD cases, especially if work involves dusts, fumes or other irritating substances. Among those are coal dust, silica, wood dust, metal fumes, nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide.
HSE advice:
- Involve a health professional in your workplace monitoring program.
- Assess workers’ respiratory health before they start a relevant job to provide a baseline (i.e., using a questionnaire or lung function assessment).
- Introduce regular testing as advised by a health professional.
- Appoint a responsible person, supported by the health professional, to report symptoms that occur between tests.
- Keep health records and encourage workers to keep a copy of their results in case they change jobs.
“COPD develops slowly, so it may take several years to tell if your employee’s lungs are working worse than expected,” HSE says. “If you detect an employee’s symptoms early enough and reduce their exposure, you will prevent further damage.”
