Occupational risk assessment of glutaraldehyde through personal air monitoring in a hospital setting.

This article focuses on assessing occupational exposure to glutaraldehyde, a high-efficiency disinfectant used in healthcare settings, among workers at a first-level hospital in Colombia. Personal air monitoring revealed that all similar exposure groups (SEGs), including cleaning staff, nurses, radiology technicians, and dental personnel, experienced airborne glutaraldehyde concentrations exceeding the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) Threshold Limit Value-Ceiling (TLV-C) of 0.05 ppm, indicating high-risk exposure levels. The study highlights inadequate ventilation, manual application methods, and insufficient use of personal protective equipment (PPE) as contributing factors to overexposure, emphasizing the need for engineering controls, substitution with less toxic disinfectants, enhanced worker education, and health surveillance to mitigate respiratory and skin health risks. These findings underscore the importance of developing regional guidelines for disinfectant use and further epidemiological research on glutaraldehyde exposure in Latin American healthcare environments.