Development of a Chemical Health Risk Assessment Tool for Health Risk Assessment from Exposure to Hazardous Chemicals

Abstract

People are exposed to chemicals on a daily basis, which can cause health disorders or even fatalities depending on their dosages. This study was conducted to develop a chemical health risk assessment (CHRA) tool to assess the risk to human health from exposure to hazardous chemicals. For developing this tool, the United States’ National Academy of Sciences (US-NAS) risk assessment paradigm and the Malaysian standards and regulations (guidelines for the assessment of the health risks arising from the use of hazardous chemicals in the workplace) were used as a framework for estimating the risk from exposure to hazardous chemicals. The computer program is written and designed within an object-oriented framework using Visual Basic (VB) programming language. The tool is designed to work as a stand-alone user-friendly software. Moreover, this tool is supported with some useful options such as data for permissible exposure limit (PEL) for common chemicals, odor level thresholds, and solvent drying time to provide users with some knowledge about the materials. Furthermore, it has an internal help function to assist users on how to use the tool. The software is also designed in such a manner that whenever the user makes a mistake while using the application, an error message will be prompted on the fault. This makes the CHRA tool easy for users to identify the risk associated due to exposure to hazardous chemicals and assess the adequacy of the control measures. The CHRA software is designed to be compatible with all Windows operating systems.