"Bahan kimia telah menjadi bagian yang tak terpisahkan dalam kehidupan manusia. Manfaatnya dalam meningkatkan kesejahteraan masyarakat berkaitan dengan pengendalian penyakit, peningkatan produktivitas pertanian, ekstraksi berbagai bahan mineral di pertambangan, keperluan untuk rumah tangga dan sebagainya.
Bahan kimia menimbulkan keterbahayaan pada lingkungan kerja dan pekerja itu sendiri. Oleh karena itu, pengelolaan dan pengamanan bahan kimia, harus dilakukan untuk melindungi pekerja dari efek yang merugikan. Pekerja harus mendapatkan perlindungan dari dampak yang diakibatkan oleh bahanbahan kimia di tempat kerja.
Laboratorium merupakan suatu tempat dimana banyak dilakukan kegiatan yang menggunakan bahan-bahan kimia. Potensi bahaya yang ditimbulkan antara lain bersifat toksik atau beracun, iritan, karsinogenik, korosif, mudah terbakar dan meledak.
Untuk mengetahui paparan bahan kimia di ternpat kerja, dalam hal ini merkuri, penulis melakukan penelitian dengan obyek penelitian adalah pekerja di Balai Laboratorium Kesehatan Bandar Lampung. Pengukuran kadar merkuri menggunakan spektrofotometri serapan atom, dengan spesimen yang diambil adalah rambut pekerja.
Hubungan paparan merkuri dengan kadar merkuri pada rambut pekerja laboratorium melibatkan variabel lamanya masa kerja, umur pekerja dan kadar merkuri diudara ruang kerja. Kadar merkuri pada rambut pekerja, dibandingkan dengan rata-rata tertinggi kadar merkuri di rambut pads komunitas yang dikeluarkan oleh WHO, yaitu sebesar 2,0 ppm.
Dari sejumlah 49 orang pekerja laboratorium, yang memenuhi kriteria sebagai sampel hanya 45 orang, dimana yang bekerja dibagian teknis sebanyak 29 orang, sedangkan yang bekerja dibagian non teknis sebanyak 16 orang.
Diperoleh hasil pengukuran kadar merkuri di udara ruang kerja laboratorium masih dibawah nilai ambang batas ( NAB ), tetapi paparan yang terus menerus akan mengakibatkan akumulasi merkuri didalam tubuh, walaupun konsentrasinya dibawah nilai ambang batas.
Hasil analisis bivariat terhadap variabel lamanya masa kerja, umur pekerja dan kadar merkuri diudara ruang kerja bagian teknis didapatkan hubungan yang signifikan antara variabel tersebut dengan kadar merkuri pada rambut pekerja.
Pada hasil akhir dari analisis regresi multivariate tidak didapatkan hubungan yang bermakna antara variabel dependent dan independent Hal ini disebabkan karena ukuran sampel yang kecil dan distribusi data penelitian yang tidak normal.
Chemicals agent can not be separated with human's life. The benefit of the materials is to increase public's welfare especially that is related to disease control, agricultural productivity, mineral extract in mining, household's necessity and so on.Chemicals agent may endanger the workers, work environment_ Therefore, materials' management and safety must be carried out for the sake of workers' protection from side effect. The workers need to be protected from the effects that cause by the materials in their work places.Laboratory is a place where many activities using chemicals agent are conducted. Harmful potentials are caused by toxic agents, irritant, carcinogenic, corrosive chemicals, flammable and explosives substances.To know the exposured of chemical materials in the work places, especially mercury, the writer conducted a research where the laboratory personnel of Bandar Lampung Health Laboratory were the object of the research. The measurement of the mercury level was by using Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometry, and the specimen materials taken were personnel's hair.The relationship of mercury's exposure to the level of mercury within the laboratory's personnel hair involved length of work variable, personnel's age and level of mercury within the air in the working room. Mercury's level within the and level of mercury within the air in the working room. Mercury's level within the workers' hair were compared with the highest average mercury level within the hair in the community, that issued by WHO is 2.0 part per million.From 49 laboratory's personnel, those fulfill the sample's criteria were 45, who 29 of them worked in technical section, and 16 others worked in non-technical section.The obtained result from the measurement of mercury level in the working room at the laboratory remained below Threshold Limit Value (TLV). However, continual mercury's exposure may result mercury accumulation within the body, though its concentration was below the TLV.The result of bivariat analysis from the variables of length of work, workers' age, and mercury level within the air in the technical section working room showed that there was a significant relationship between the variables and mercury level within workers' hair.On the final result from multivariate regression analysis, not be obtained fairly significant relationship between dependent and independent variables. This problems caused by sample size was so small and spreading for data was not proportional."
