Early detection of work-related health risks
Leiden University, Utrecht University and ArboUnie have established a public private partnership to develop a warning pipeline for (hazardous) chemical exposures to prevent exposure of these chemicals to workers, and by that prevent work-related diseases and reduce missed working days.
The societal and economic impact of decreasing the cases of work-related diseases by preventing exposure to (hazardous) chemicals is enormous. According to RIVM 4.7% of workers suffer from a work-related disease, where 1.6% are chemical compound related. If we assume that the costs of one missed working day is 200 €, the economic loss due to chemical exposure is 1.4 billion Euro/year in the Netherlands. A decrease of work-related diseases will reduce health care costs, reduce the number of missed working days or that workers have to stop with their job.
The aim of RISK@WORK is to develop an innovative mass spectrometric-based risk assessment workflow to identify possible risks due to worker exposure to hazardous chemicals. We will optimize our existing exposome pipeline to target specific occupational exposures including experimental transformation of potentially hazardous chemicals. A pilot study involving samples taken from workers under supervision of an occupational physician will be used to evaluate the developed pipeline for early detection of work-related risks.
RISK@WORK will show how informed exposomics profiling can be used to identify early health risk of workers and present ways of implementing such an early risk assessment in occupational health monitoring to reduce occurrence of work-related diseases and sick leave. This will allow us to prepare a roadmap for the implementation of the developed pipeline in occupational health and prevent long-term illness in workers. Our long-term aim is to reduce the current number of 3000 deaths per year due to exposure to hazardous chemicals.
