Health effects of low level exposure to lead among communication radio repair workers at Samutsakhon province, Thailand

Prolonged low-lead exposure of communication radio-repair workers working routinely for soldering may have adverse health. This study aims to investigate health effects of lead exposure among workers working in a plant building. There were 66 repair workers in exposed group and 54 clerks in low exposed group. The structured-questionnaire of general characteristics was used for face to face interview. Blood samples were collected for assessing blood lead level (BLL), hepatic and kidney functions. High blood pressure was also diagnosed. Mean age (SD) of exposed and low exposed group were 36.9 (10.1) and 41.3 (10.7) years old. Of 39.4% exposed group was working 6 h/day and 61.1% of low exposed group was 8 h/day. Median BLL of the exposed group was 2.28 mu g/dL which was higher than BLL of another group at 1.04 mu g/dL (p-value < .001). There was the significant association between BLL and hypertension (OR = 1.384 and p-value = .040). The findings revealed that there were existing adverse effects of low-lead levels on the workers working in the same plant building.

Automated summary

The study found that prolonged low-lead exposure among communication radio-repair workers may have adverse health effects, particularly significant association with hypertension.