Occupational Exposure Limits

Today we are going to talk about Occupational exposure limits and all things that Many procedures generate hazardous air contaminants that can get into the air that people breath. Normally, the body can take in limited amounts of hazardous air contaminants, metabolize them and eliminate them from the body without producing harmful effects. Safe levels of exposure to many hazardous materials have been established by governmental agencies after much research in their short term (acute) and cumulative (chronic) health effects using available human exposure data (usually from industrial sources) and animal testing. When the average air concentrations repeatedly exceed certain thresholds, called exposure limits, adverse health effects are more likely to occur. Exposure limits do change with time as more research is conducted and more occupational data is collected
                 An occupational exposure limit is the maximum average air concentration that most workers can be exposed to for an 8 hour work day, 40 hour work week for a working lifetime (40 years) without experiencing significant adverse health effects. A very small percentage of individuals experience some discomfort or adverse health effects at or below the exposure limit because of a wide variation in individual sensitivities or pre-existing conditions. When employee's work a shift longer than 8 hours per day, the exposure limit must be adjusted (lowered) to prevent the employee from over exposure. To learn more about Occupational exposure limits click here…Occupational Exposure Limits

PEL’s (permissible exposure limit0 is a regulatory limit on the amount or concentration of a substance in the air. This is usually based on an eight-hour time weighted average (TWA), although some are based on short-term exposure limits (STEL). If you want to learn more about Permissible exposure limits click here…permissible exposure limits

 I find this picture very interesting. it is an easy way too calculate your permissible exposure limits. This shows that it is easy and accesible for anyone to fins out their Pel's

This picture shows that Occupational Exposure Limits is a very broad topic. There are so many topics under OEL's It's crazy to think about.

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Dose Response

Dose Response relationship, or  or exposure response relationship, describes the change in effect on organisms caused by differing levels of exposure. This may apply to individuals (a small amount has no significant effect, a large amount is fatal), or to populations (how many people or organisms are affected at different levels of exposure).

Studying dose response, and developing dose–response models, is central to determining "safe" and "hazardous" levels and dosages for drugs, potential pollutants, and other substances to which humans or other organisms are exposed. These conclusions are often the basis for public policy. The EPA has developed extra guidance and reports on dose response modeling and assessment, as well as software. To learn more about dose response click here,,, Dose response extra information 

Dose Response can be interpreted more than one way. First, the relationship between the quantity or intensity of your treatment regime and its affects on living cells, tissues, or organisms. Another way to interpret dose response is this:  The relationship between the intensity of an exposure to an infectious pathogen, physical stressor, or a toxin, and its affects on living organisms. To learn about the Dose ResponseDose Response Society Society, click here... 

The reason I chose this picture is because most people only think that like harmful chemicals are toxic. That is not the case. anything can be toxic if you have a enough of an exposure to it. A person can even be toxic because they annoy you and do not promote a healthy lifestyle for you!

The thing that i found the most interesting is that even oxygen is toxic if we have too much of it. I thought that was weird because we need oxygen to survive yet if we have too much it can be deadly.