Occupational risks for health of the workers of the chemical complex

The authors have summarized all the materials collected over many years of research dedicated to working conditions assessment and health of chemical industry workers; mainly, at plants producing ethylbenzene-styrene, olefins oxides, and rocket propellant. We have detected that the most adverse working conditions occur in Unsymmetrical Dimethylhydrazine (UDMH), rubber, and fiber glass production. We have highlighted cause-and-effect relations between working conditions and higher frequency of early (preclinical) stages of occupational diseases as well as basic chronic non-infectious diseases. We have shown that, depending on character, action mechanism and chemical factor intensity, we register apparent staging in pathologic changes evolvement in a body. We have also proved very high degree of occupational causation for early stages of toxic hepatitis (biliary dyskinesia) detected in processing machines operators at rocket propellant (UDMH) production; initial symptoms of hands' vegetative-sensory polyneuropathy detected in gluing workers at rubber production; specific changes in hands' skin detected in operators at fiber glass production. Musculoskeletal system diseases were also defined as occupationally caused ones with high degree of causation for certain workers' groups; arterial hypertension had average degree of causation. As we conducted in-depth medical examination of 2411 workers we detected that the greatest number of practically health people among examined staff worked at large-tonnage ethylbenzene-styrene production (54.7%) and olefins oxides production (35%); the smallest number of practically healthy workers (12%) was detected at rubber production. Other production workers had pathologies in various organs and systems.