Development Of A Chemical Health Risk Assessment Tool To Assess The Risk To Health From Exposure To Hazardous Chemicals

People working in the process industries are exposed to chemicals on a daily basis. Some of these chemicals can cause health disorders or even fatalities depending on its dosage. It is required that all work place be assessed on its risk to health from exposure to chemicals at work. However, the assessment requires competency in the field and takes some time due to the manual steps that need to be taken. Therefore, the objective of this project is to develop an application called the Chemical Health Risk Assessment Tool (CHRAT), which is able to determine the risk rating of an exposed chemical at work.
CHRAT is developed using Visual Basic (VB) programming language. The development of this software has been divided into four different stages, which are planning the application, building the graphical user interface, writing the computer programme and software validation and verification.
The methodology of the project includes determining the hazard rating and exposure rating first before assessing the risk rating. The hazard rating can be done in two ways which are hazard rating based on hazard categories and hazard rating based on risk phrases. The exposure rating is primarily based on the frequency of exposure, the duration of exposure and the intensity or magnitude of exposure. Once the risk rating has been determined, steps are given to provide adequate control measures to control the risk of the exposure to the chemical.
The case study result using CHRAT proofs that the software is capable to assess the risk rating of an exposure to hazardous chemical as well as provide adequate control measure if necessary.
CHRAT is useful and feasible because it is simple, user-friendly, able to function as a stand-alone application and it is compatible with all windows operating system. Furthermore, the cost of developing the software is cheap and the application incorporates the risk tolerability limit for Malaysia.