A study of occupational hazards in 23 coal mine enterprises in China and their protection status.

[Objective]To understand the status of the occupational hazards in China's key coal mines and their protections.[Methods]Adopting the method of status investigation in the epidemiology,an investigation was conducted for the occupational hazards and protective status of the 23 key coal mine enterprises in Liaoning,Hebei,and Jiangsu provinces and Beijing city.[Results]The dusts and noises are still the most serious occupational hazards in China' s coal mine enterprises. The protective facilities in the work face of mining,drilling and excavation were mainly configured with the wet stiletto equipments and sprinkler to restraint dust,and supplemented by local mechanical ventilation equiments.Local mechanical spray devices were mainly used in the mechanized mining,coal-cutting and excavating machines.The water spray dustproof devices were mainly used in mining and digging connecting points,strap transport and material transport.The dustproof devices such as sprinkler were used in the road surfaces of open pit.Despite the protective facilities were already set up in many workplaces,but the dust pollution was still more serious because the insufficiency of daily management,examination and repairment,and the maintenance of these facilities.The total configured number of dust masks may basically meet the protective requirements,whereas,which of gas defence and hearing protectors could not meet the actual demand.More than half of the enterprises failed to train the user how to properly use the personal protective equipments(PPE ) according to the professional and technical traning standards.[Conclusion]The absence of supervision and daily management for occupational hazard protection facilities and the unreasonable selection,use and maintenance of PPE are important reasons for occurrence of occupational diseases in China's coal mining enterprises.