Visible and safe work with epoxy: Prevention of eczema using visualization

The overall objective of the project is to prevent eczema caused by epoxy work.
In the composite industry and other industries where epoxy is used, for many years work has been intensified with rules and statutory education, substitution tests, new work procedures, new technology, new protective equipment and other technical measures. Despite this, there are still too many who get epoxy eczema. Limit values and monitoring of airborne chemical substances have for many years been a cornerstone of chemical occupational health and safety work. However, this has not been the case for chemical skin exposure, presumably because it is technically complicated and resource-intensive. For the same reason, we only know a little about the working conditions that cause skin exposure. This is especially true of epoxy, as you often cannot detect skin damage.
We will make epoxy measurable and visible when the substance is on the skin by adding a fluorescent tracer. This will enable us to detect whether employees working with epoxy are exposed, uncover working conditions that are associated with increased risk of exposure, and provide instant feedback to employees so that they can continuously train optimal workflows.
In cooperation with the epoxy industry we have developed an epoxy resin that contains a fluorescent tracer. The tracer delivers light when illuminated with UVA radiation, which we can detect and quantify using a well-established digital image-based method.
For two years, we will follow 500 employees at two major companies that produce wind turbine blades in epoxy. Every six months they will record work procedures daily and measure the exposure to epoxy on the skin with the newly developed method. At the start of the study and after 2 years they will fill out a questionnaire, among other things about eczema and patch tested for allergy to the epoxy products they work with. Employees who report eczema will undergo a clinical study.
One half of the employees are randomized to visualize the skin exposure, where they can immediately see where and where they have epoxy on the skin (intervention group). The other half does not visualize the skin exposure (control group). The research group will be blinded, including who comes in which of the two groups.
After completion of data collection we will analyze the working conditions that predict epoxy skin exposure with the control group. By comparing the risk of subsequent skin exposure, eczema and sensitization to epoxy in the intervention group with the control group, we will analyze the effect of the visualization intervention.
The method is simple to use and, if it works, could be transferred directly to other industries where epoxy is working.