隨著各種工商業快速蓬勃發展，勞工暴露在各種有害污染物之情況日益嚴重，如何有效且精確的進行職業暴露評估，了解勞工個人所遭受到之污染物暴露程度，乃刻不容緩之事。然而目前所採用之暴露評估方式，經常存有準確度易受質疑、代表性不佳、價格昂貴等問題。因此本研究針對傳統暴露評估方式之問題，提出一以勞工作業類別及暴露時間為基準之新式暴露評估模式。本研究經由開發儀器、實驗室模擬、實廠測試驗證後，確認此模式具有價格便宜、準確性高、可大規模實行等優點。其中本研究所開發之電子TAP系統(electronic time-activity pattern recorder, 簡稱ETAP)，於實驗室模擬測試結果顯示，ETAP記錄值與即時性問卷記錄值具有極高相關性(r=0.99)；而實廠測試結果顯示ETAP記錄值與觀察值進行比較之相關係數可達0.93，可知ETAP不論在有、無干擾之情況下皆可精確記錄勞工時間-活動模式。而結合ETAP與現場不同作業濃度測定結果所推估之個人暴露量與傳統個人直接採樣值進行比較，結果顯示r值約0.87，具有極高相關性。其中，高暴露作業對於勞工個人暴露量之貢獻比例為89.45%；中、低暴露作業對於勞工個人暴露量之貢獻比例則分別為4.05%、6.50%，顯示勞工主要暴露量均來自於高暴露作業。由上述結果可知本研究提出之新式個人暴露評估模式確實可取代傳統暴露評估方式，且可釐清不同作業之暴露貢獻量。未來應可更進一步將此新式個人暴露評估模式廣泛的應用於作業環境中勞工個人暴露評估，以提供更精確可靠之參考數據。 Researchers in occupational exposure assessment are always searching for better methods to measure exposure levels. The conventional active or passive personal sampling methods often have problems such as high cost in sampling and analysis, and not enough time resolution in the exposure profile. A new device that can precisely record the worker’s exposure pattern was developed and tested in the laboratory and in the field. In the laboratory test, the exposure duration recorded by the electronic time-activity pattern recorder(ETAP) that developed in this research had an excellent agreement(r=0.99) with the time recorded by the real-time questionnaire. In the field study, the results showed that the ETAP performed as good as the human eyes did in tracking worker’s activity pattern even the ETAP was interfered by many compounds. The exposures calculated by the new method had good agreements(r=0.87) with the personal monitoring. Furthermore, by using the ETAP data and the operational based sampling technique, we were able to identify that the workers received almost 89.45% of total exposure in the high concentration area while only stayed 10.55% of their time in that area. If carefully tune up the system, the new method can provide more accurate exposure data at much lower cost.
