Please enable JavaScript.

Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.

Hygiene III: Specific Risks - Coggle Diagram

- - - - Physiology and effects of noise on man
        The human body, like any other body, receives the vibrations transmitted by the air. Some of these vibrations are perceived by the ear: they are audible vibrations or sound. The ear captures sound waves and transforms them into nervous impulses that through the auditory nerve reach the brain.
        
        Effects of noise on humans
        Although a sudden and intense acoustic stimulus, (for example an explosion), can damage the hearing capacity, even causing a rupture of the eardrum, more important are the effects that noise can cause in the medium and long term on the ear. The permanence in a noisy environment, can alter the nervous fibers of the cochlea arriving to lose its capacity to generate nervous stimuli. The auditory acuity decreases when such stimuli do not reach the brain.
        
        Measuring instruments and techniques
        Sound measurements and analysis provide the essential data for sound assessment and give us an objective means of comparing disturbing sounds under different conditions. The measurement and analysis of sound is a powerful diagnostic tool, essential for the determination of the existence, or not, of risk by exposure to noise and for the quantification of the same.
        
        Noise Control
        Noise control is a difficult problem to solve, which must be addressed in all its aspects. It involves a multitude of variable circumstances in space and time, which lead to a certain situation of comfort or discomfort for people who are exposed. The aim of noise control is to reduce the dose of noise in a worker when it is high. Therefore, taking into account the parameters involved, there are two main ways of acting, which are Technical Control and Administrative Control.
- - - - Wet air temperature
        This temperature, together with the dry temperature, gives a measure of the degree of humidity of the air in the environment surrounding the worker. Normally, the wet temperature will be lower than the dry temperature. The greater the difference, the lower the ambient humidity. When both temperatures coincide, the air is said to be saturated with moisture. To measure the wet temperature you can use a simple mercury thermometer whose bulb is covered with a cotton wick moistened and placed in a container with water.
        
        Balloon temperature
        This temperature gives an indication of the amount of heat the worker receives as a result of proximity to hot spots or surfaces. To measure this temperature, the bulb of a mercury thermometer is placed inside a 15 cm copper sphere. The diameter of the sphere is painted black on the outside.
- - - - Lighting We city dwellers spend up to 80% of our time in closed environments, at home, on transport or at work, in opaque rooms with little or no sunlight. Optics has long known that light conditions visual acuity and color perception. Today the state of research in neuroscience allows us to affirm that light is biodynamic, since it deeply affects the endocrine system and through it all biological systems
        
        The light
        We call light the part of the spectrum of electromagnetic radiation that is perceived by the human being. It includes infrared light, which we recognize as heat, the entire visible spectrum, with the seven colors of the rainbow and ultraviolet rays, responsible among other beneficial effects of tanning. The visible radiations, between 400 and 720 nm (1 nanometer = 1x10-9 m), are especially perceived by the human being thanks to those wonderful sensors that are the eyes.
        
        Gases: We will consider within this section, only those poisonings produced by substances that in normal conditions and at room temperature are in a gaseous state, because there are a number of chemicals that in certain circumstances can emit vapors to be volatile substances, which when inhaled exert their toxic effect. Within the latter group would include solvents and vapors.
        
        Carbon Monoxide Poisoning
        It constitutes carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning, the most frequent cause of death from toxins after drug overdoses. In spite of being a very frequent toxic gas in the industrial environment, we cannot forget it as a form of habitual intoxication in the domestic environment, although it has been managed to diminish with the use of other energies. Thus, city gas with a CO content of 9% has been replaced by natural gas, which lacks CO in its composition.
  - - - Fumes are also solid particles, but they are too fine to be called powders. While dust particles are divided by mechanical means, fumes are formed by resolving vapors from very hot processes, such as welding. Chemical reactions can also produce fumes, but the gases and vapors generated in chemical processes should not be confused with fumes. Metal fumes are the most dangerous, especially those of heavy metals.
        
        Welding, metal cutting and grinding work not only involves risks to vision, and unfortunately, it is one of the first risks (if not the only one) from which exposed workers are protected. The most frequent reason is the lack of training and education programs on Industrial Safety and Hygiene.
        
        Fibers are particles that vary greatly in size; some are visible to the eye and others are not, and they can affect a worker's pulmonary system just as much.
        Among the best known is the synthetic vitreous fiber. Synthetic vitreous fibers are a group of inorganic fibrous materials containing aluminum or calcium silicates, and are made from rock or stone, clay, slag or glass. They do not occur naturally in the environment, but are widely used as thermal and noise insulators and to reinforce other building materials.
        
        Some gases and vapors can be sampled passively or without a pump using gas monitoring sampling plates (passive samplers). Plate samplers are available with a variety of collection media including solid adsorbents, chemically impregnated liquid cartridges, and reagent-filled tubes.