INVESTIGATING THE HEALTH HAZARDS OF ARENA DUST

Results of the Study

Sara Jackson is an Occupational Hygienist investigating the health hazards of arena dust as part of a master's degree in Occupational Hygiene Practice.

She is currently calling for volunteers to help her complete the monitoring program.

Check out the video below to find out more about Occupational Hygiene and hear about Sara's study into arena dust. If you are a riding instructor who teaches for a full day (not necessarily every day) in a sand or composite sand arena and would like to help, please contact Sara.

What's so bad about a bit of dust?

Breathing in too much dust can make you cough, sneeze or wheeze and may exacerbate other respiratory conditions, but really it's what's in the dust that determines how severe the health effects can be.

Respirable Silica

Many arena footings are comprised of sand (Silica), or a composite containing sand.
If sand is ground into fine enough particles (<10µm in effective diameter) then these particles are known as respirable silica as they are aerodynamic enough to reach the very deep parts of the lungs when breathed in, where they can't be coughed back up again.
Persons exposed to respirable silica in high enough concentrations, for long enough periods of time, may get lung cancer as a result.

So this study is aimed at investigating the levels of respirable silica that horse riding instructors are exposed to when teaching in a sand arena, to see whether it is present at a level we need to be concerned about.

So who can help out?

If you are a horse riding instructor interested in helping out and:

You are based in or around Perth, Australia.
You will be spending at least one full day (at least 4 hours teaching time) teaching in the same sand or partially sand arena during the period February - April 2014.
You are willing to wear a monitor for at least one day to measure the dust level whilst teaching.

Then please contact Sara to register your interest in volunteering for the program.

PLEASE NOTE:

I'd like to compare irrigated arenas to non-irrigated arenas and full sand to sand composite, to see whether there is a measurable difference in the dust levels, so you don't need to have a dusty arena to participate.

If you think you might be interested and would like to find out some more information about what is involved, please don't hesitate to contact Sara with your queries.

I'm not able to volunteer, but I'm interested in the study and the results, how can I help?

That's great! Please share this page to get the message out there to others who may be able to volunteer. If you are interested in finding out the results of the study, please contact Sara to register your interest. You will be emailed a summary of the results when the study is completed.

I'm sure many of us have looked out at the dust billowing across an arena and wondered if the neighbours are likely to complain, or quite how many dollars in surface that dust represents, but have you ever wondered whether breathing in the dust might affect your health?

I did, and now I am calling for riding instructors to volunteer to assist me in a study to investigate whether working in a dusty arena is a health hazard.

Sara Jackson
February 2014