A pilot study of acute health effects from hydraulic oils

Hydraulic oils are used at a large number of work places today, and their use has been increasing the past years. Hydraulic oils are suspected to give both acute and chronic health effects. however, details in this are not known, probably beacause there a re several types of such oils, as well as several types of additives. This makes research in this area difficult. Although there are many workers exposed to hydraulic oils, little research has been performed in this area. Certain work places have increas ing use of hydraulic oils, such as subsea installations offshore. Hydraulic oils are used for regulations of valves and for pressure testing at these subsea units. Workers in an oil company has expressed concern as they have developed different symptoms o f disease during this work, and they want to know if the hydraulic oils are causing this. The study therefore will examin exposure to oil vapor and oil mist and potential additives at three such working places in the company FMC Technologies: At Sotra, in Kongsberg and on an offshore platform. Five workers will be examined by exposure sampling for five days by two methods; active sampling on filters and by direct reading instruments. In addition, all workers involved in this type of oil exposed work (abou t 200) will be examined by a questionnaire. The questions will be from the standardised instruments "Optimal symptom score questionnaire" and SHC-subjective health symptoms, as well as questions about work and background. A control group of about 150 in unexposed work will be established. The data will be analysed to see if there are higher prevalences of symptoms in the exposed groups, and if there are any relationships between exposure and degree of symptoms. The results will be of great importance for the further surveillance an implementation of improvements in the actual company, and others using this oil - and will be a baseline for deciding furter steps in this research area.