Exposure register

Under the working environment legislation, UiO is obliged to keep a register of employees and students who are exposed to certain potentially hazardous factors in the working environment. The register is used to document exposure that may give entitlement to compensation for occupational disease. Some factors can cause illness many years after the exposure took place. The register must therefore be kept for up to 60 years. The exposure register requirements apply to both employees and students. Below you will find the registration requirements for the various factors:

Substances that may be carcinogenic, toxic to reproduction or mutagenic (CMR substances)

The register requirement covers employees and students who are or may be exposed to carcinogenic, mutagenic (damaging to genetic material) or reprotoxic chemicals.

All employees and students who work with such chemicals must be registered, unless exposure can be ruled out. Employees and students who do not work with the chemicals themselves should, as a rule, not be registered, unless a non-conformity occurs (spill/accident) in which everyone in the room may be exposed.

You can easily get an overview of all chemicals that require an exposure register from the substance inventory Workplace Safety.

Employees and students who work with chemicals labelled with at least one of the risk/hazard statements listed below must be registered. The list shows the hazard statements that require registration, cf. the Regulations concerning the Performance of Work, section 31-1:

Hazard statement (H statement):

• H340 May cause genetic defects
• H350 May cause cancer
• H350i May cause cancer by inhalation
• H360 May damage fertility or the unborn child
• H360F May damage fertility
• H360D May damage the unborn child
• H360FD May damage fertility. May damage the unborn child
• H360Fd May damage fertility. Suspected of damaging the unborn child
• H360Df May damage the unborn child. Suspected of damaging fertility

Other hazard statements (for example H341 – Suspected of causing genetic defects, H351 – Suspected of causing cancer or H361 – Suspected of damaging fertility or the unborn child) do NOT trigger a registration requirement. However, units may choose to include chemicals labelled with these hazard statements if they wish.

The requirement also applies to work with other substances/factors that are classified as carcinogenic in the safety data sheet or in the Regulations concerning Action and Limit Values, Annex 1 (list of limit values for contaminants in the working atmosphere).

The requirement also applies to work involving processes that may give off carcinogenic fumes or gases, for example diesel exhaust and welding fumes.

Exposure to quartz can lead to chronic lung diseases such as silicosis and COPD. Quartz is classified as carcinogenic by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).

Examples of work tasks:

• Changing filters in ventilation ducts connected to extraction systems where chemicals labelled as in table 1 have been used.
• Welding
• Refuelling vehicles and machinery (petrol and diesel)
• Handling formalin preparations
• Cutting stone/sandblasting quartz-containing stone materials

Lead and lead compounds

The register requirement covers employees and students who are or may be exposed to lead or lead compounds. Following recent years’ regulation of the use of lead in products such as petrol and paint, general exposure in the population has been greatly reduced. However, there is still a risk of exposure to lead and lead compounds in connection with, for example:

• Restoration of older buildings and objects where the use of original paint is important – exemptions are granted for the use of lead-based paint in such cases
• Welding and thermal cutting of materials with lead-containing surface treatment
• Handling lead batteries
• Sampling of soil, water and air contaminated with lead
• Restoration of lead-containing materials
• Environmental remediation of lead-contaminated ground

Dust containing asbestos fibres

The register requirement covers employees and students who are or may be exposed to dust containing asbestos fibres. Asbestos was a component of many materials and used in many areas until it was banned in 1985. This includes ventilation ducts, heat exchangers, ceiling tiles, insulation boards around stoves and fireplaces, acoustic panels in corridors, special insulation in laboratories, fire insulation in steel structures, jointing mortar, adhesives, floor coverings, paint and varnish (this list is unlikely to be exhaustive).

Serpentine asbestos is often known as chrysotile or “white asbestos”. Chrysotile accounts for more than 90% of all asbestos used in buildings. Large amounts of chrysotile are still found in older buildings, particularly in asbestos-cement sheets, vinyl flooring, pipe insulation and tile adhesive.

The amphibole asbestos amosite (also known as brown asbestos) is commonly found in insulation (in buildings constructed before 1985). Unlike serpentine asbestos (chrysotile/white asbestos), amphibole asbestos has a needle-shaped crystal structure that penetrates lung tissue more easily. Amphibole asbestos is considered more harmful than serpentine asbestos (chrysotile), but all types of asbestos are carcinogenic and harmful to health when inhaled. There are five main types of amphibole asbestos, of which the first three are the best known in an industrial context:

• Crocidolite (blue asbestos): Considered the most dangerous form.
• Amosite (brown asbestos): Widely used in insulation.
• Anthophyllite: Often occurs in talcum.
• Tremolite & actinolite: Often present as contaminants in other mineral products.

Types of work operations/situations that may cause exposure include maintenance work on buildings and installations containing asbestos materials.

Biological agents in infection risk group 3 or 4, or agents marked D in the annex to the Regulations concerning Action and Limit Values

An exposure register is required for employees or students who are or have been exposed to biological agents in infection risk group 3 or 4, as well as agents in infection risk group 2 marked D in Annex 2 to the Regulations concerning Action and Limit Values.

Infection risk groups 3 and 4 comprise biological agents (micro-organisms such as bacteria, viruses and fungi) with a high risk of infection that can cause serious disease, require a strict level of containment and pose a major risk to employees and potentially to society. The employer is obliged to notify the authorities of such work and to keep a register of exposed employees.

Infection risk group 3 (high risk)

• Can cause serious disease in humans, poses a serious hazard to employees, and there is a risk of spread in the community.
• Treatment/prevention: Effective prophylaxis or treatment is usually available.
• Examples: Tuberculosis bacteria, hepatitis B virus, HIV, anthrax.

Infection risk group 4 (very high risk)

• Causes serious disease in humans and poses a serious hazard to employees.
• High risk of spread in the community.
• Treatment/prevention: There is usually no effective prophylaxis or treatment available.
• Examples: Ebola virus, Marburg virus, Lassa fever virus.

Who must be registered: All employees and students who work with biological agents in these infection risk groups must be registered, unless exposure can be ruled out. Employees and students who do not work with such biological agents themselves should not be registered, unless a non-conformity occurs in which everyone in the room may be exposed.

Other work and situations that require registration:

• Work tasks in which employees may come into contact with biological agents in infection risk group 3 or 4 and are protected only by personal protective equipment. Example: changing filters in ventilation ducts connected to extraction systems where biological agents in infection risk group 3 or 4 have been used.
• Non-conformities (spills, releases, ventilation failure, etc.) that result in exposure of everyone present, including those not working directly with the biological agents in question.

Ionising radiation

The requirement applies to exposure to sources of ionising radiation.

The employer must keep a register of employees who work with ionising radiation, cf. section 31-4 of the Regulations. The following exposures must be registered:

• Dosimeter readings for those who wear a dosimeter. The total exposure over a one-year period is registered. It must be assessed whether the dosimeter readings are plausible/genuine (an example of a non-genuine reading could be a dosimeter that has been on long-haul flights). Only doses assessed as actual doses are to be entered in the register. Doses of 0.0 must not be registered.
• Calculations of individual radiation doses in cases where someone has ingested or inhaled radioactive substances, also includes radon. For radon, the exposure value must exceed 400 Bq/m³ per year in order to be registered.

• Measurements and calculations must be carried out following an exposure, if someone not wearing a dosimeter has been accidentally irradiated.

  Examples of work involving ionising radiation include work with X-rays, accelerators, radioactive materials, and work carried out in buildings or ground with high levels of radon.

Hazardous substances in rock work

No employees or students at University of Oslo are exposed to hazardous substances during rock work as defined in the regulations. However, it may still be relevant to register work operations involving certain types of rock. Some rocks may contain radon or asbestos (registered as “asbestos” or “ionising radiation”). Exposure to rocks containing quartz is registered under CMR substances. Risk assessments are carried out as part of the mapping process.