Are Separate Standards for Occupational and Environmental Exposures Good Public Health Policy?

Occupational and environmental exposures are treated as distinct entities for the purpose of public health protection. Yet workers and community members may experience the same exposures simultaneously or within a very narrow time frame. Agricultural chemicals applied by workers in the field drift into residential communities. Chemicals may be carried from a work site, with or without physical boundaries, into the home and delivered to household members. Meteorological conditions transport agricultural chemicals or stored ashes to residential communities during and after the work day. Occupational standards generally allow a higher level of exposure to workers than environmental standards allow for community exposures. For some chemicals, standards exist for only one exposure group, thus leaving the other exposed group without protection. The distinction between occupational and environmental exposures assumes the identification of specific human activities as work or non-work. However, not all human activity falls clearly into one specific category. The strict separation of occupational and environmental exposures therefore renders public health protection of all exposed people difficult to achieve. An in-depth discussion about the factors and assumptions that are used when occupational and environmental standards are separately applied to exposed populations is needed to enhance the public health of all people.