Occupational Risks of Podologists: A Combined Assessment of VOCs, Vibration, Noise Levels and Health Complaints

ABSTRACT

Podologists are exposed to many occupational hazards, including volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from insole manufacturing and noise/vibration during nail or tissue grinding. In this study, VOCs, noise, and vibration were measured in five podiatry clinics and three offices. Questionnaires were administered to 23 podologists and 19 office workers to inquire about their pain, ocular, skin and respiratory complaints. The results showed that the podologists’ exposure to the total VOC concentrations was approximately twice as high as that of the office workers. The podologists’ complaints regarding pain were found to be correlated with ambient noise and hand-arm vibration levels. Ocular, skin, and respiratory complaints were also found to be correlated with total VOC concentrations. These results suggest that VOCs, noise and vibration in the working environment may impair podologists’ health and that they have an intensifying effect on each other, increasing the severity of health issues.

KEYWORDS:

• Podologist
• occupational health and safety
• noise
• VOC
• vibration

Acknowledgements

The authors thank all the podologists and control group subjects who volunteered to participate. The authors also sincerely thank the staff of the Occupational Health and Safety Research and Development Institute, Kocaeli Regional Laboratory Directorate, for their valuable support. The authors also wish to thank Dr. Sanaz Lakestani for assistance with the analyses, which were conducted at the laboratory at Bolu Abant Izzet Baysal University.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Compliance with ethical standards

Approval for this study was obtained from the Non-Interventional Studies Ethics Committee, Kocaeli University (KOU) (KU GOKAEK/2020/283).

Consent to participate

All participants volunteered to participate in the study and signed informed consent forms.

Consent to publish

All authors agreed to publish their manuscript in this journal and gave consent to publish.

Limitations of the study

Details on the Limitations of the Study are presented in the Supplement material section.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/09603123.2023.2256684

Additional information

Funding

KOU Scientific Research Project unit provided the necessary financial support for the study (FCD-2021-2443).