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. 2020 Sep 28;17(19):7088.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph17197088.

Tuberculosis and Other Airborne Microbes in Occupational Health and Safety

Esther Vaquero-Álvarez  1 , Antonio Cubero-Atienza  2 , Pilar Ruiz-Martínez  3 , Manuel Vaquero-Abellán  4   5 , María Dolores Redel-Macías  2 , Pilar Aparicio-Martínez  4   5
Affiliations

Tuberculosis and Other Airborne Microbes in Occupational Health and Safety

Esther Vaquero-Álvarez et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

Airborne pathogens and non-malignant infectious diseases such as tuberculosis are highly contagious and can have severe effects on healthcare workers. The symptoms of these diseases take time to manifest, which can prevent workers from noticing that they have been exposed until symptoms appear. The current paper sought to assess the occupational safety and preventative measures taken in laboratories in Spain, and to compare these measures with those reported by other studies worldwide. A cross-sectional study of workers (35-50 years old) was conducted using a web survey (N = 30), and a bibliometric analysis was carried out in the Scopus database (92 documents were selected). The occupational safety and health measures were inadequate, according to the opinions of the workers. The training (p < 0.01), the amount of work (p < 0.05), and how the workers followed their protocols (p < 0.001) were linked to incidents and exposure to airborne pathogens. The most significant previous publication was a report (848 citations) stating that the previous variables linked to exposure are vital for prevention. Most works focused on countries like the U.S.A. (p = 0.009) were reviews, with a limited number of studies focused on occupational safety.

Keywords: laboratories; tuberculosis; work environment.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flow diagram for the selection of articles for bibliometric analysis based on the topic and population.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Frequency of documents per country of the bibliometric analysis with a range from one to 33 documents.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Number of publications per year of the 92 documents from the bibliometric analysis.
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