REACH Worker Exposure Assessments: Ensuring Meaningful Health Risk Communication

Abstract

Objectives: Within the chemical legislation, REACH was implemented in order to improve safe working conditions with hazardous substances. Literature and real-life experiences by those concerned have shown that there are still gaps with a need for improved risk communication. This study elaborated on how information provided by REACH is understood and acted on by down- and upstream users, and how it can be further improved.

Methods: An extensive literature study including 21 studies and 13 tools was carried out. The outcomes were discussed and further supplemented by means of 18 interviews concerning 37 internal safety and REACH documents to build six different use cases representing different Dutch downstream companies. For the upstream perspective also 2 sector organizations and 2 registrants were interviewed. Three online workshops were organized in order to share insights and gather input on international recognition, potential suggestions and further recommendations with 30 participants from nine different EU countries.

Results: Although the methods to collect the data differed between the different stages of the study, the general results from all three stages elucidated similar themes in the data and each of the stages used the results from the previous stage as a starting point. Recurring themes concerned the (i) complexity of documents, (ii) deficiencies as experienced by SMEs in REACH, (iii) feedback and responsibilities in the supply chain, and (iv) the cooperation between REACH and OSH.

Discussion: The study at hand revealed that even though there are currently several activities to improve communication on safe-use of chemicals, communication on safe-use in the scope of REACH should be improved. This includes e.g. the future involvement of actual end-users in activities and development related to communication of safe-use information in the scope of REACH including feedback, less complicated and complex documents and clear communication concerning legislations and updates of documents. Furthermore, the issues recognized in the Netherlands are mostly also recognized by international workshop participants, thereby indicating international benefits in various areas by means of improved communication.

Conclusions: The study confirmed that many of our generic conclusions were already part of the shared knowledge in the REACH community, but that it is very valuable that this knowledge has been explicated, validated and reported in a structured way in the present project. Besides uncovering some crucial aspects that offer potential improvements regarding risk communication, this study offers possible solutions and next steps to be taken.

Keywords: OSH legislation; REACH; health risk communication; worker exposure assessment.