I ndonesia has one of the highest ratios of maternal mortality in Southeast Asia (359 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2012), according to the latest Indonesia Demographic and Health Survey. The Indonesian government provides free maternal and child health services, but for many of the twenty-five million female workers who are of reproductive age, these services are not available during their...

Preliminary data are reported from a study of 269 cadmium-nickel battery factory workers and 94 cadmium-copper alloy factory workers. The target group comprises all workers with more than 5 years exposure to cadmium at any time since the factories started production. An internal reference group of 328 alloy factory workers without cadmium exposure was also studied. The expected number of deaths...

Workers in a modern electronics factory were surveyed by questionnaire and lung function testing to see if there was evidence of widespread work-related respiratory symptoms. Of the responding workers exposed to solder flux fumes on the shop floor, 22% had work-related breathlessness or wheeze or both. Exposed workers had a lower FEV1 and FVC than unexposed workers. Work-related rhinitis was al...

Background: Hearing loss induced by noise is one of the well-known and main health problems of occupational exposures. As a result, the current study sought to examine the association between age, working experience, and smoking status and hearing loss among sugar factory workers. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in 2016 among 270 workers of a sugar factory in Fa...

Background: Trinitrotoluene (TNT) is one of the most well-known and oldest explosive agents. In the recent decade, bioenvironmental, biochemical, and biological effects of TNT exposure have been more in the spotlight. In this study, we aimed to evaluate spirometric parameters in workers of a TNT factory exposed to TNT and other related fumes and dusts compared with the unexposed controls. Metho...

Toluene is an important toxic volatile agent found in many modern industrial processes. Toluene exposure is of particular concern because of the ongoing exposure of thousands of workers in industrial plants and recent research has indicated that toluene/exposure can result in chronic toxicity. The monitoring and control of toluene exposure among at-risk workers is necessary. Urine hippuric acid...

Consider a manager hiring workers to staff a new factory. Moving from zero employees to a thousand employees exponentially increases the factory’s production. Recognizing a pattern, the manager again hires a thousand employees. This increase in workers also raises factory production because machines are now used more efficiently, but the effect is not quite as dramatic as opening the factory fr...