Comparison of asbestos exposure in a containment system with and without employment of glovebags

Our plain-English summary of Comparison of asbestos exposure in a containment system with and without employment of glovebags, by J.H. Lange, K.W. Thomulka, S.L. Sites (Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, 2002).

The study

• Authors: J.H. Lange, K.W. Thomulka, S.L. Sites
• Journal: Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology
• Published: 2002;69(6):843-6
• Cited by: 2 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This study compared workers' airborne asbestos exposure during removal of boiler and pipe insulation inside containment structures, with and without the use of glovebags. The surviving text does not give the place, dates or fiber type. The authors analyzed 53 personal air samples taken without glovebags and 13 taken with them. The arithmetic mean was 0.023 fibers per cubic centimeter (f/cc) without glovebags and 0.006 f/cc with them, a statistically significant difference (p less than 0.01). The 95% confidence intervals were 0.018 to 0.028 f/cc without glovebags and 0.005 to 0.007 f/cc with them. No single sample exceeded the OSHA permissible exposure limit of 0.1 f/cc. However, the samples were reported as values labelled 'TLA', not as the time-weighted averages in which that limit is expressed. The highest sample was 0.09 f/cc, taken without a glovebag. The authors considered the difference not functionally meaningful because both groups were well below the limit. The authors concluded that exposure above the OSHA limit was unlikely either way. They also concluded that glovebags inside containment were not warranted based on exposure.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Comparison of personal air monitoring results for two work practices (with versus without glovebags) during asbestos abatement inside containment
• Who was studied: Personal air samples from boiler/pipe insulation abatement: 53 samples without glovebags and 13 with glovebags. Location, dates and number of workers are not given in the surviving text.
• Exposure: Airborne asbestos during removal of boiler/pipe insulation inside containment, with or without glovebags. Fiber type is not stated. The sample values are labelled TLA rather than time-weighted averages. The comparison benchmark is the OSHA PEL of 0.1 f/cc as a time-weighted average.
• Main results:
  • Arithmetic mean exposure was 0.023 f/cc for the 53 samples without glovebags and 0.006 f/cc for the 13 samples with glovebags. The difference was statistically significant (p less than 0.01).
  • 95% confidence intervals were 0.005 to 0.007 f/cc with glovebags and 0.018 to 0.028 f/cc without glovebags.
  • No single sample in either group, measured as a TLA value rather than a time-weighted average, exceeded the OSHA PEL.
  • The highest sample was 0.09 f/cc, without a glovebag.
  • Using TLA values, the estimated probability that 5% or more of employees would exceed the PEL was around 38% with glovebags and 5% without. The article contradicts itself here: a later sentence attributes the 38% to the without-glovebag group. When values were adjusted to a TWA, the probability for both practices fell below 5%.
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that the likelihood of exposure exceeding the OSHA PEL was low whether or not glovebags were used. They also concluded that glovebags in removal of asbestos-containing material inside containment were not warranted based on exposure.

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Asbestos Exposure, Glovebag.

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