The distribution of blood lead levels and job titles among lead-acid battery workers in Taiwan.

There were several reports about elevated blood lead levels in lead battery workers. However, their subjects came from only one or several plants. We visited all the 23 registered lead-acid battery plants in Taiwan and collected their health examination records in 1992, the blood lead analyses of which were completed in 3 medical college hospitals. In total, we have obtained 1726 records. The average blood lead concentration was 37.1 ug/dl, and 37% of blood lead levels were more than 40 ug/dl (action level). The overall participation rate for health examination among employees was 69.4%. The participation rates were different among both plant sizes and job titles. Assuming that there was no peculiar variation within the four working zones (plate manufacture jobs, assembly jobs, part-time exposure jobs, and office jobs) in each plant, and that blood lead levels of our samples were stable after deleting newly hired workers, we estimated that the blood lead distributions of 2486 employees in these plants were 63.3%, 26.4%, 9.25% and 1.05% for below 40, 40-59, 60-79, and above 80 ug/dl respectively. We conclude that such an analysis should be performed each year to monitor the effectiveness of occupational hygiene in workplace of lead battery plants.