Objectives: To document if manganese from welding causes health effects including neurological symptoms associated with manganese exposure.
Material and methods: An anonymous questionnaire survey for a total of 505 welders at 3 welding facilities in Qingdao City, China was administered and analyzed.
Results: Numerous symptoms were reported by the welders including difficulty with eyes for 43% of them, sore throat for 30% of them, and tremors were reported by over 18% of them. Tremors were associated with longer periods of work as a welder and correlated with the relative cleanliness at the 3 different facilities. Tremors did not correlate with smoking.
Conclusions: Manganese-exposed welders reported a variety of symptoms related to work and showed neurological disturbances that correlated with amount of exposure. Int J Occup Med Environ Health 2017;30(2):241-247.
Keywords: eye symptoms; hand tremor; manganese exposure; neurologic symptoms; welding fumes; welding materials.
This work is available in Open Access model and licensed under a CC BY-NC 3.0 PL license.