Relationship of Degree Exposure of Wood Dust to Occupational Asthma

Abstract

Occupational asthma is a kind of occupational disease that poses a risk to workers in the wood industry. Workplace studies concerning exposure to particular substances have shown a incidence of occupational asthma ranging from 3% to 54%. In wood processing activities, workers are at risk of wood dust exposure starting from the sawing process, materialization, production, sanding wood, assembling to finishing wood products. The objective of this study was to prove the effect of the exposure degree to wood dust on the incidence of occupational asthma among wood industry workers in Jepara, Indonesia. The research design was an observational study using a case control approach involving a population of 767 workers. Among those workers, as many as 35 respondents were selected as the sample for the case group and 43 respondents were selected for the control group. Statistical analysis was conducted by applying logistic regression test resulting that there was an increase in the OR value along with the increase of exposure degree to wood dust (p value = 0.044). The OR value in subjects with a heavy degree of wood dust exposure was 4.66 (95% CI = 1.04-20.93), while the OR value of the group with moderate degree of wood dust exposure was 3.14 (95% CI = 0.75-13.04). Current research showed that the higher the degree of wood dust exposure, the more risk the workers obtained occupational asthma in the wood industry. It is important to make efforts to prevent and control risk factors for wood dust in the work environment.