Occupational Health Care

Employers and operators of shooting ranges should take the following measures to protect their workers and practitioners draft exposure to concentrations of lead and hazardous noise levels at the firing range covered:

1. Provide workers and practitioners draft hazard information and adequate training to prevent hazardous exposures.

• Provide general information and specific warnings about the risks through job bulletins and training programs especially aimed at them.

• Set the precautions and hygienic practices to be taken by workers of shooting ranges and practitioners of this activity.
• Provide training to workers and practitioners of shooting on the actions and the available means to eliminate or reduce potential exposures.
• Inform workers and practicing shooting on the symptoms that may signal a health problem. Workers also report that high levels of lead can affect health with no symptoms and should be screening of blood lead if they are concerned about exposure to lead.
• Inform women workers and practitioners who are pregnant shooting, or who are planning a pregnancy, about the possible adverse effects on the fetus.

2. Establish effective engineering and administrative controls.

• If feasible, provide to employees for personal toilet facilities and lockers and develop a mandatory program for hygiene and washing shooting practitioners and workers in order to limit contamination of personnel or transport pollutants into the house.
• Install a well-designed ventilation system for the supply and air extraction.
• Provide maintenance service and replace air filters regularly.
• Design and maintain a structure to the scoring area in order to limit transmission of noise levels.
• Incorporate effective administrative controls during the hours of workers to limit their exposure time and ensure working conditions clean and safe.

3. Provide workers and practitioners draft protective equipment and other protective measures.

• Offer a variety of devices such as hearing protection ear plugs and ear muffs.
• Dispose of protective equipment for skin and eyes, and NIOSH approved respirators to workers who will clean the surfaces and areas contaminated with lead.
• Provide floor mats, knee pads and linings for shoes when where needed, to limit the transfer of lead to clothing.

4. Provide medical monitoring and health workers.

• Establish an initial and periodic medical surveillance of workers, as required by the OSHA standard on Lead.
• Must advise all adults exposed to lead (firing workers and practitioners) to continue monitoring medical practices recommended by organizations like the Association of Occupational and Environmental Clinics or those outlined in the environmental publication Environmental Health Perspectives.
• Arrange for workers audiometric evaluations, as required by the OSHA standard on noise.

Tags: administrative controls, audiometric, blood lead, ear muffs, ear plugs, engineering controls, exposure time, fetus, hazard information, hazardous exposures, hazardous noise, hygienic practices, lead, medical monitoring, noise level, pollutants, pregnant shooting, protective equipment, protective measures, shooting ranges, training, ventilation system

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 27th, 2009 at 1:24 am and is filed under Safety and Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.