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8288050 Tools to translate occupational exposure to hazardous substances into health risks: a scoping review

oemed · 2025-10-06 · canonical JSON source

8 visible annotations · policy: published · automated confidence ≥ 75.00%

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Objective Early detection of health effects due to occupational exposure to hazardous substances is important to prevent irreversible occupational health problems. It is therefore essential that occupational hygienist (OH) and occupational physicians (OP) cooperate efficiently. In practice, collaboration between OHs and OPs is often ineffective or even missing. This scoping review aimed to identify and summarize the tools that are used by occupational health professionals to translate health hazards or health risks due to occupational exposure into health effects, and vice versa.Material and Methods A scoping review was performed using the Preferred Reporting Items for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-Scr). Four databases (PubMed, Embase (via Ovid), Cochrane Library (Wiley): CDSR, Central and Cinahl (Ebsco)) were searched for scientific peer-reviewed articles in English, Dutch, German or Spanish. Studies were included if they described tools, included hazardous substances and related health effects and targeted occupational health professionals.Preliminary Results Thirteen tools across 16 articles were identified. The tools included databases (n=4), roadmaps (n=3), mathematical models (n=2), work processes (n=2), information documents (n=1) and guidelines (n=1). Seven tools adopted a hazard-based approach, while eight followed a risk-based approach. Although all tools made a link to health effects, no tools were found that made a direct translation from exposure risk to specific symptoms.Discussion/Conclusion The outcomes of this scoping review will serve as the foundation for developing a new tool tailored to the needs of occupational professionals. We anticipate that this new tool will assist occupational professionals in translating chemical exposure risks into health effects, contributing to the prevention and treatment of occupational diseases while also encouraging collaboration between OHs and OPs.