Avaliação da exposição ocupacional ao benzeno em postos de revenda de combustíveis

Abstract

Benzene is a belonging compound of the aromatic hydrocarbons class, and it is present in the commercialized gasoline found in gas stations. Attendants and other workers else are exposed to benzene and other hydrocarbons during the fuel supplying and transportation. Due its occupational exposure conditions, benzene myelotoxicity manifests itself mainly through hematological changes that may develope into more severe effects, such as the appearance of leukemia. Objective: To perform an integrative literature review about the procedures that must be used to evaluate the occupational exposure to benzene in gas stations. Methodology: According to the steps that constitute an integrative review elaboration, the guiding question and the inclusion/exclusion criteria for the articles were defined. The data collection was performed by an online survey of scientific articles indexed according to the following databases: MEDLINE (Pubmed) and SCIELO, using the following descriptors and keywords: benzene and occupational exposure and gas station workers. Results: Some articles published between the 2010's and the 2020's that approached the procedures that can be adopted to evaluate the exposure to benzene in gas stations were selected. The occupationally exposed workers' surveillance and monitoring actions develop important information for the adoption of measures that can reduce these workers' exposure. The articles included in this research bring some studies that approaches health surveillance and environmental and biological monitoring actions, which are able to evaluate the exposure to the toxic agent. The first article presented applied the model (FPSEEA) which enabled the identification of the main determinants for the increasing of health problems related to the exposure to benzene. This model allowed the organization of information and the location of possible health surveillance actions in gas stations. The other listed articles used environmental and/or biological monitoring, besides the hemogram, to evaluate risk factors to the health and the level of workers' exposure to benzene, emphasizing the importance of these measures for the workers' protection. Conclusion: The research identified the importance of surveillance actions and environmental and biological monitoring to prevent the increasing of health problems for exposed workers and then avoid the occurrence of intoxications.