Module 4: Asbestos And Disease - Objectives and Activities

OBJECTIVES
By the end of this module, you should:
  1. understand something of the history of asbestos as an occupational and environmental health hazard and of the social and regulatory responses to control of this hazard. This history has useful lessons for the control of occupational hazards in general;
  2. be able to describe the main epidemiologic and clinical features of all the diseases caused by asbestos and understand their dose-response associations;
  3. be familiar with the Asbestos Regulations, 2001.

ACTIVITIES:

  1. The accompanying note is an overview of the subject.
  2. Read the materials provided.

EXERCISE:

Do the Asbestos Regulations exercise.

READING:

The following will be handed out:

  1. Surveillance of Occupational Diseases in South Africa (SORDSA). Alert: Diagnosis and management of asbestos related diseases in South Africa. Johannesburg: National Centre for Occupational Health, August 2000. (This is a very useful summary of the asbestos related disease, their management and compensation).
  2. Rees D, Goodman K, Fourie E, et al. Asbestos exposure and mesothelioma in South Africa. S Afr J Med 1999; 89:627-634. (A descriptive study of the characteristics of 123 cases collected in the late 1980s).
  3. Felix M, Leger JP, Ehrlich RI. Three minerals, three epidemics - mining and asbestos related disease in South Africa. In : Mehlman MA, Upton A, eds. The identification and control of Occupational and Environmental Diseases. Princeton: Princeton Scientific Publishing, 1994. (A historical review of asbestos related disease in South Africa).

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Postgraduate Diploma in Occupational Health (DOH) - Modules 3 – 5: Occupational Medicine & Toxicology by Prof Rodney Ehrlich & Prof Mohamed Jeebhay is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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