Webinar: Respiratory Exposures and Outcomes Among Cannabis Workers

When:
March 10, 2020 @ 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm
2020-03-10T14:00:00-05:00
2020-03-10T15:00:00-05:00
Cost:
Free

Presented By:  Christopher Simpson, PhD, MSc

Webinar Details

Commercial cultivation and processing of cannabis is a new and rapidly growing industry in many US states. Workers in this industry are exposed to a variety of occupational health hazards, however, the nature and intensity of many of these exposures has not been previously characterized. In this webinar, Dr. Simpson will report concentrations of PM and VOCs measured in two indoor cannabis cultivation facilities, and measurements of work-related respiratory symptoms, lung function, and cannabis allergy in workers.

Learning Objectives

At the completion of this webinar, participants will be able to:

  • Recognize occupational health hazards in cannabis grow operations and product production facilities
  • Identify current research for quantifying occupational respiratory hazards for cannabis workers, and their
    associated health effects
  • Identify best practices to mitigate occupational respiratory hazards for cannabis workers

Biography

Christopher Simpson, PhD, MSc is a Professor in Exposure Science at the School of Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences at the University of Washington. His research interests involve the application of analytical chemistry to the development of techniques for assessment of exposure to toxic chemicals, and the subsequent application of those techniques to investigate occupational and environmental exposures. He is particularly interested in the development of analytical methodology to measure xenobiotics and their metabolites or transformation products in biological samples (biomarkers). In support of these efforts, he conduct studies to develop sampling and analysis methods for environmental samples, to provide accurate external exposure measures to validate the biomarkers.