Investigation of the factors influencing assessment the health, safety and environmental risks of activities involved with nanomaterials

Background: Assessing the risks of new technologies has always been challenging. It seemsthat the first step of this process is to try to identify the main factors influencing the riskassessment. So, the present study was conducted to identify the effective factors in assessingthe health, safety and environmental risks of activities involved with nanomaterials.Material and Methods: A questionnaire was designed and validated by experts inoccupational health, medical nanotechnology and health education using factors possiblyinfluencing assessment of the health, safety and environmental risks of nanomaterials. Thequestionnaire was then sent to 10 other experts and they were asked to give a score of 1 to 5 toeach of the factors.Results: Twenty-four factors affecting the assessment of health, safety and environmental risksof nanomaterials were identified and divided into four groups: nanomaterial properties, parentmaterials properties, work properties and workplace properties. The factors with the highestscores in each of the areas of health, safety and environment were, toxicity of nanomaterial,reactivity of nanomaterial, and solubility (or stability, or biopersistency) of nanomaterial,respectively.Conclusions: If we want to rank the level of concern about the health, safety and environmentalrisks of nanotechnology, we will undoubtedly give the first rank to health risks. it seems logicalthat a combination of factors from all four groups is appropriate to assess the risks ofnanomaterials; But which factor should be more influential in risk assessment and which oneless, requires further studies.

کلیدواژه ها:

Nanomaterials ، Risk Assessment ، health ، safety and environmental risks ، Occupational Exposure