The purpose of this paper is to evaluate 1) blood lead levels of workers at auto repair shops as Biological Exposure Indices (BEI) of toxic substances such as lead and toluene that are produced during automotive painting process, 2) thε differencεs depεnding on personal characteristics of workers who have been exposed to toluene by using urine hippuric acid concentration as a marker and 3) the correlation between the concentration of hazardous chemicals in each workplace and the BEI. All subjects were male with a mεan age of 36.2 yes. In terms of age, most were in the 30 to 40 age group (13 persons, 48.1%). In relation to the length of work experience, the highest proportion had expe디εncε of 10 years of 1εss (1 8 persons, 66.7%). Twenty three workers werε, cigarette smokers (85.2%) while 4 (14.8%) were nonsmokers. In addition, more than 80% of the workers drank alcohol. Dust concentration and toluene exposurε during automotive painting showed no significant difference with age, length of work experiεnce, smoking and drinking while a significant difference (p<0.05) has been detected bεtween lead concentration and smoking. The geometric mean of dust concentration, lead concentration toluenε concentration were 0.38 mg/m3, 0.0021 mg/m3 and 1.08 ppm respectively. In addition, the gεometric mean of blood lead levεIs and urine hippuric acid concentration werε, 1.70 μg/dl and 0.25 g/g respectively, which were lower than the standard levels suggested by the Ministry of Labor. To determine the influential factors on blood lead and urine hippuric acid concentrations, a correlation analysis has been conducted with variables of air, lead and toluene concentrations, age, length of work expεrience and amount of cigarette smoking. According to the analysis, a relatively high correlation (p<O.Ol) has been observed bεtween air lead concentration and biological sample concentration.
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