Beryllium Sampling Methods

Abstract

Three sampling methods for airborne beryllium are compared to validate observations made in a 1973 National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) industrywide study of the beryllium industry which indicated that, in general, the three methods yielded different results for samples taken in the same environment. Under NIOSH contract a beryllium production facility was sampled in 1974 by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) personal total and personal respirable sampling methods over a period of one year. All samples were analyzed by atomic absorption spectroscopy. Statistical analysis of the resulting data by NIOSH confirms the observations made in the 1973 study that samples collected by the three methods produced different results. No reliable relationship was found to exist which would permit conversion of the result obtained by one method to a result obtained by either of the alternate methods. It appears that, in general, for large numbers of samples taken under the same sampling conditions, the values determined by the personal respirable sampling method will be lower than those obtained by the AEC method and the values determined by the personal total sampling method will be greater.

A Statistical Evaluation of Asbestos Air Concentrations

“…The investigation presented here, which also employs samples that are non-TWA measurements, does not support an association between area and personal samples [46,50,53,55]. Measurements from area and personal samples were not related (statistically different) when evaluated using correlation coefficient, regression and descriptive evaluators, as has been previously suggested [47]. Sample concentrations also were statistically different, with and without outliers, when analysed as non-transformed and transformed measurements using the Wilcoxon ranked sum and z tests, respectively.…”

“…Sample concentrations also were statistically different, with and without outliers, when analysed as non-transformed and transformed measurements using the Wilcoxon ranked sum and z tests, respectively. Personal samples were statistically greater in concentration than area measurements [45,47].…”

“…These studies suggest that there were no differences for concentrations measured by the two methods, area and personal sampling. Historically, it has been suggested that personal samples generally provide a higher concentration [38,[45][46][47] and are suggested to be the best measure for occupational exposure as compared to area samples [38,40,[45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55]. A few studies [35,44,56,57] have suggested that area and personal samples provide similar results and area samples may be applicable for predicting personal (occupational) exposure [35].…”

Sensitization and chronic beryllium disease at a primary manufacturing facility, part 1: historical exposure reconstruction

“…In these studies, older sampling records of breathing zone, general area, and daily weighted average have been used to estimate participants' historical exposures. However, these metrics are poorly correlated with personal respirable (r=0.33) or CFC total (r=0.49) beryllium exposure metrics (21). It was recognized that the epidemiologic studies conducted to date have not fully incorporated potentially important exposure characteristics such as particle size and solubility in estimating personal historical exposures for study subjects, which may in part explain the inconsistent exposure-response results (2).…”

Sensitization and chronic beryllium disease at a primary manufacturing facility, part 3: exposure–response among short-term workers

“…Work tenure intervals: < 1 yr, 1 to < 2 yrs, 2 to < 3 yrs, 3 to < 4 yrs, and ≥ 4 yrs (includes 1 person with > 5 yrs tenure). (r=0.33) (17). We believe that the quality and quantity of full-shift personal samples (4022 samples across 269 job titles) available for generation of the JEM used for this study contributed to the precision and validity of the estimates.…”