The construction dust-induced occupational health risk using Monte-Carlo simulation

A probabilistic risk assessment model was developed to explore the health effects of construction dust on the practitioners in the construction industry based on the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) risk assessment model and the Monte-Carlo simulation method. The health risk was assessed for workers in five zones during the superstructure construction stage of residential projects in Beijing. Health impairment assessment models were applied to translate health risks into disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), which are more intuitive and easy to understand. Sensitivity analysis methods were used to analyse the various exposure parameters and influencing factors that affect the health risk assessment results. The results indicated that workers in the template zone were exposed to the largest health risk, which followed a lognormal distribution of 1.14 × 10−6±9.43 × 10−7, and the probability exceeding 10−6 was more than 40%. The average health risks for workers in the steel, concrete and floor zones were slightly below 10−6, and the workers in the office zone had the lowest health risk. The spearman rank correlation coefficient method and the full factorial designs method were used for a sensitivity analysis and validation. Sensitivity analysis showed that the sensitivities of the average exposure time (AT), exposure duration (ED), exposure frequency (EF) and concentration (C) were larger, while AT and body weight (BW) exhibited a negative sensitivity. Workers in the template and steel zones had the larger health damage, with an average of more than 0.1a.