He. Rippen et al., OCCUPATIONAL-HEALTH DATA AS A BASIS FOR PROCESS ENGINEERING CHANGES -DEVELOPMENT OF A SAFE WORK-ENVIRONMENT IN THE SODIUM-AZIDE INDUSTRY, International archives of occupational and environmental health, 68(6), 1996, pp. 459-468
The development of an occupational health system for a plant manufactu
ring sodium azide has had to confront biological and hygienic difficul
ties related to the nature of sodium azide, Sodium azide in pellet for
m is used as the nitrogen generant for automobile air bags; however, i
t is manufactured as a very fine powder making exposure control more d
ifficult. Sodium azide is a rapidly active, vasodilatory hypotensive a
gent that causes headaches and drops in blood pressure. Occupational h
ealth assessment of the plant and its employees demonstrated the need
for exposure control, based on inspection, interviews, health data, pr
ocess and site review. Targeted studies demonstrated the nature and ma
gnitude of health effect problems at this plant and the relationship t
o azide exposure. Engineering and hygiene changes were developed in re
sponse to the evidence of worker exposure demonstrated by the targeted
studies. The occupational health surveillance system provided a monit
or for temporal changes, Results appear to demonstrate over the period
of the development of the program, the following changes: (1) reducti
ons in evidence of subjective symptoms from azide exposure (health inc
ident reports of headaches and other symptoms), (2) reductions in obje
ctive signs of effects from azide exposure (drops in cross-shift mean
arterial blood pressures), and (3) reductions in measured levels of az
ide exposure. Future studies need to, validate the evidence of exposur
e changes and to further identify additional sources of exposure. Inte
rventions designed to reduce exposures need to be demonstrated to be e
ffective and need to be monitored to demonstrate continuing effectiven
ess.