Health Assessment of Artisanal Metal Work: Injury Patterns, Aerosol Exposures, and Biomonitoring

Artisanal metal sculptors are an often independent and self-employed workforce whose contributions to the cultural landscape remain underrecognized in public health research. Despite sustained exposure to airborne particulates and acute injury hazards, these workers operate outside traditional regulatory frameworks and surveillance systems, such as those governed by OSHA, due to their non-standard employment status, with a notable lack of workers’ compensation or insurance coverage. This dissertation addresses that critical oversight through a three-aim investigation that integrates injury surveillance, environmental exposure assessment, and biomonitoring. Aim 1 analyzed First Reports of Injury (FROI) submitted to the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission from 2019 to 2023. Because sculptors lack a dedicated occupational classification, a surrogate group was identified using text-mining and recoding methods. This group demonstrated higher rates of injury claims and longer durations of uncompensated lost workdays compared to machinists and metal processors. These findings highlight systemic under-recognition of sculptors in injury databases and call for more inclusive surveillance strategies. Aim 2 characterized environmental exposures in seven metal sculpture studios across the Chicago metropolitan area. Real-time aerosol monitoring and personal air sampling revealed short bursts of intense particulate emissions during active tasks, particularly in spaces with poor ventilation. Although base metals varied, the most frequently detected airborne metals-such as aluminum, manganese, copper, chromium, cobalt, and nickel-were often linked to auxiliary materials like abrasives and welding consumables rather than the sculpted workpieces themselves. These findings underscore that exposure risks are shaped more by materials and task processes than by the core metal medium. Aim 3 assessed internal exposure among 12 sculptors using matched pre- and post-work samples across four biological matrices: blood, urine, saliva, and exhaled breath condensate (EBC). Blood samples yielded the most consistent quantification, particularly for manganese and chromium, and correlated with personal air concentrations. Saliva and EBC also showed promise as non-invasive alternatives for the biomonitoring of specific metals, offering potentially feasible alternatives to field-based surveillance when phlebotomy is impractical.