Safety in Mines Research Advisory Committee
Final Project Report
The development of an occupational
diseases database, to be managed by
the Department of Minerals and
Energy, to record morbidity and
mortality of occupational diseases in
the South African mining industry.
NG Torres, JE Boyce, Dr DF Barnes, Dr N White
and A du Plessis
Research Agency:
Graphic Mining Solutions International
(GMSI)
Project Number:
GEN 505
Date:
November 1998
2
Executive Summary
This research report addresses a need for a centralised database to record the occur-
rence of occupational diseases in the South African mining industry, together with the
morbidity and mortality of such diseases. The database will be used by the Director:
Occupational Medicine of the Department of Minerals and Energy, for research purposes.
This research will help to identify and classify problem areas in occupational disease
management, so that appropriate preventative measures can be investigated.
The occupational diseases database has been designed, together with the programs re-
quired to use it, and the layout of suitable data-entry forms for the use of the mining
industry in submitting details of disease occurrences. A data format has also been
documented for transferring data electronically from those mines that have data-capture
software for diseases.
The design was based on discussions with representatives of Employers, Labour and
Government.
Programming and testing of the database system was performed by the IT Section of the
Department of Minerals and Energy, with quality control by the Research Agency.
At present, it is not possible to analyse any correlation between diseases and causative
factors. It is therefore recommended that a project be initiated to design and implement an
occupational hygiene database system for this purpose. This should lead to the improve-
ment of the occupational hygienic condition of working environments found in the mining
industry, thus reducing the incidence and severity of occupational illnesses.
The research project team are listed in the following table.
Name
Organisation
Project Role
N.G. Torres
GMSI
Project Leader
J.E. Boyce
GMSI
Systems Architect
Dr D.F. Barnes
AngloGold Health Services
Health Consultant: Employer Interests
Dr N. White
UCT / Groote Shuur Hospital
Health Consultant: Labour Issues
A du Plessis
Turgis Consulting
Implementation Advisor
3
Preface
This is the final report comprising the output of research project GEN 505. It describes the
design of a South African Mines Occupational Disease Database system (“SAMODD”)
which will assist the DME and SIMRAC in the research of contaminant monitoring and
control strategies to improve occupational health in the South African mining industry.
Note: Appendix 1 contains the detailed technical design specifications of the database
system. As such, it will mainly interest those who require in-depth technical details
from an Information Technology perspective, rather than the average reader. The
specifications are included in this report because they represent the main
deliverable of the project.
Acknowledgements
The research agency wishes to express gratitude to SIMRAC for the opportunity to partici-
pate in project GEN 505, and for SIMRAC’s motivation and financial support of the project.
The assistance of the Department of Minerals and Energy in programming the computer
system, and in obtaining test data for the prototyping phase, is appreciated.
In addition, thanks are due to those who gave of their time in the project definition work-
shops and design reviews, and especially in the gathering of the test data, without which
the project could not have succeeded.
4
Table of Contents
Executive Summary.............................................................................................................. 2
Preface................................................................................................................................. 3
Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................. 3
Table of Contents ................................................................................................................. 4
List of figures ........................................................................................................................ 5
List of tables ......................................................................................................................... 5
Glossary of abbreviations and terms..................................................................................... 6
1
Introduction...................................................................... 8
2
Sources of information..................................................... 8
3
Research methodology.................................................... 9
3.1
Initial research ........................................................................... 9
3.2
Preliminary design..................................................................... 9
3.3
Workshops ................................................................................ 9
3.4
Formal design.......................................................................... 10
3.5
Programming........................................................................... 10
3.6
Case studies............................................................................ 10
3.7
Presentation to MOHAC.......................................................... 11
3.8
Implementation........................................................................ 11
4
Background to design of the database system............... 13
4.1
Relevant Parliamentary Acts................................................... 13
4.2
Disease record contents ......................................................... 14
5
Overview of use of the database system ....................... 16
5.1
Data sources for disease data ................................................ 16
5.2
Disease record data input flow................................................ 17
5.3
Subsequent analysis of disease data ..................................... 18
6
Discussion on design of the Database System .............. 19
6.1
Shared SAMRASS Database Tables ..................................... 19
6.2
Code Lists ............................................................................... 19
6.3
Personal Identification Tables................................................. 21
6.4
Main Working Tables .............................................................. 22
6.4.1
Personal Disease Record................................................................................. 22
5
6.4.2
Occupational History ........................................................................................ 23
6.4.3
Annual Workforce............................................................................................. 23
6.5
Data Input................................................................................ 24
6.6
Data Volumes.......................................................................... 24
6.7
Output from the Database....................................................... 24
7
Testing of Prototype System.......................................... 24
8
Conclusions and Recommendations.............................. 26
8.1
Conclusions............................................................................. 26
8.1.1
Outputs............................................................................................................. 26
8.2
Recommendations .................................................................. 26
References ......................................................................................................................... 28
Appendix 1 ......................................................................................................................... 29
Design Specifications ......................................................................................................... 29
List of figures
Figure 4.1 Parliamentary Acts .......................................................................................13
Figure 4.2 Disease record attributes..............................................................................14
Figure 5.1 Data sources ................................................................................................16
Figure 5.2 Flow of work for data input ...........................................................................17
Figure 5.3
Analysis of disease data...............................................................................18
List of tables
Table 6.1 Shared SAMRASS Database Tables ................................................................. 19
Table 6.2 Disease Groups ................................................................................................. 20
Table 6.3 Diseases............................................................................................................ 21
6
Glossary of abbreviations and terms
Abbreviations
Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act
COIDA; COID Act
Department of Minerals and Energy
DME
Graphic Mining Solutions International
GMSI
International Classification of Diseases
ICD10
International Labour Office
ILO
Information Technology
IT
Minerals Act
MA
Mine Health and Safety Act
MHSA
Mines Occupational Health Advisory Committee
MOHAC
Occupational Diseases in Mines and Works Act
ODMWA
Occupational Health Working Party of MOHAC
OHWP
Percentage disability
PD
Employee’s Industry Number, identifying the person for
pension fund and other purposes.
PF Number
Safety in Mines Research Advisory Committee
SIMRAC
South African Bureau of Standards
SABS
South African Mines Occupational Diseases Database
SAMODD
South African Mines Reportable Accident Statistics System
SAMRASS
The Employment Bureau of Africa
TEBA
Terminology
Normalisation
A term used in IT: normalisation is a data analysis process intended to enhance clarity,
flexibility, consistency and integrity of a database design. It also embeds business rules
within the database, preventing a significant proportion of common system errors.
Code; Coding
In the IT industry, the term Code is generally used to denote computer programs in the
form of the source code written by programmers, in a language such as F
ORTRAN
or
C
OBOL
; Coding is the writing of such programs.
Attribute
Attributes are also known as fields or columns in a database table. An “Employee” table
could contain “Surname”, “FirstName” and “IdentityNumber” attributes.
7
Record
An entry in a database table. Also known as a row. An Employee record could contain the
following data: Surname = ”Smith”, FirstName = ”Wilbur” and IdentityNumber =
”7212015108188”.
Table
A term used in the IT industry to describe a collection of related data. The data within a
database table is organised into rows and columns, the rows representing entries in the
table, and the columns representing the attributes of the data.
Reportable
Within the context of this report, an occurrence of an occupational disease is said to be
Reportable if an employer is required by a national law or regulation to report that occur-
rence to the DME for entry into the Occupational Diseases Database.
Compensable
An occurrence of an occupational disease is said to be Compensable if compensation has
been awarded for a permanent disability resulting from that disease occurrence. (The
terms Compensatable and Compensationable are also used.)
8
1 Introduction
Project GEN 505 was commissioned
1
by SIMRAC to address a lack of information on the
prevalence of occupational diseases in the mining industry. This lack has frustrated
desires to tackle causes of such occupational diseases in a coordinated, effective manner,
as the data required to analyse occurrence trends has been lacking.
This is not to suggest that the industry has made no effort to combat environmental
hazards; on the contrary, in many quarters, extensive monitoring and control measures
are in place, and have been for many years. It is with a view to a more efficient and
effective use of resources that the database has been set up, so that problem areas may
be recognised and prioritised, and occupational hygiene issues dealt with to the optimal
benefit of both workers and the industry.
It is believed that this centralised database to record the occurrence of occupational dis-
eases in the mining industry will go a long way towards addressing the need.
2 Sources of information
The focus of the research project was on the needs of the South African mining industry,
so information was gathered from discussions with representatives of Employers, Labour
and Government, rather than from publications.
However, the Gazette made reference to two Acts of Parliament, viz. the Occupational
Diseases in Mines and Works Act, No. 78 of 1973; and the Compensation for Occupa-
tional Injuries and Diseases Act, No. 130 of 1993. The Health Consultants on the team
extracted project (i.e. database) requirements from these Acts.
Although the Minerals Act and the recent Mine Health and Safety Act were not included in
the scope of the gazetted project, the research team made the design sufficiently generic
to ensure that reporting under these Acts could be handled by the database.
SABS 083 (Reg. 4.17.1 of 2
nd
June 1989) was referred to for details of reporting require-
ments in respect of noise induced hearing loss.
1
The research project was advertised in Government Gazette No. 18260 of 5
th
September, 1997.
9
Reference was made to the “Report of the Meeting of Experts on Workers’ Health Surveil-
lance”, from the proceedings of the 270
th
Session of the International Labour Office, 1997,
as well as the ILO Code of Practice entitled “Recording and notification of occupational
accidents and diseases”. Although the team took cognisance of these publications,
especially when defining terms, strict compliance was not deemed mandatory, as the
project scope is limited to South African conditions.
3 Research methodology
The research methodology adopted to design the occupational diseases database system
was as follows.
3.1 Initial research
As the research team included two Health Consultants, representing not only the specific
interests of employers and labour, but also of the industry generally, through their
connections with MOHAC and SIMRAC, much of the required information was obtained
from them. This information included the following—
•
Detailed technical data on occupational diseases;
•
National and international trends and legislation;
•
Procedural issues related to reporting of occupational diseases;
•
Requirements of the larger mining houses; and
•
Requirements from a labour perspective.
3.2 Preliminary design
From this information, a preliminary conceptual design was produced. This showed—
•
Existing information flow, in the reporting of Reportable and Compensable
Diseases;
•
Expected data sources for the proposed occupational diseases database;
•
Attributes
2
required in an occupational disease record in the database;
•
Conceptual input screens for the different classes of occupational disease (Noise
induced hearing loss, Cardio-respiratory tuberculosis, etc.); and
•
An overview of how, and for what purposes, the database is likely to be used for
analysing occupational disease data.
3.3 Workshops
Workshops were held with interested parties, both during and after this preliminary design
phase, to review the design and to gather further relevant information. The interested
10
parties included representatives of the State (the Department of Minerals and Energy,
DME), organised labour, major mining houses and smaller mining concerns. A
presentation was also made to the Occupational Health Working Party (OHWP) of
MOHAC.
A meeting was held with the GEN 509 research team (Dr Murray and Dr Hnizdo, of the
Department of Health), to discuss the viability of linking the SAMODD database with the
Autopsy (PATHAUT) database, which contains respiratory disease records. It was
mutually agreed that, if it was desired to transfer data from the PATHAUT database to the
SAMODD database, then for the foreseeable future, it would be most practical to use a
paper-based system, where data would be printed out from the PATHAUT database and
entered manually into the SAMODD database. Factors which led to this decision were: the
relatively small amount of data involved; the different architectures on which the two
systems were based; the physical separation between the systems; and the risk of
duplicating data which had already been submitted by the mines. (The GEN 509 Final
Report may also be referred to in this connection.) There will also be a need for checking
the congruency of the data in the two databases; this can be satisfied by printing out
selected records from SAMODD, for manual comparison with PATHAUT.
3.4 Formal design
A formal design document was produced by the research team, and presented to the
DME, and to MOHAC. A MOHAC committee approved this design in a meeting at the
Mineralia Building in Braamfontein, on 6
th
July, 1998.
3.5 Programming
The original contract had provided for the Research Agency, GMSI, to do the develop-
ment of the database and related software, but the IT Section of the DME found that this
would conflict with standard practice within the Department. The intention of GMSI had
been to do the development using Microsoft’s Visual Basic language, with a Microsoft
SQL-Server database; the Department, however, has standardised on the BTrieve
database and the Magic development environment. It was agreed, therefore, that the
design produced by GMSI would be implemented by the Department’s IT Section.
3.6 Case studies
The DME’s IT Section produced a working prototype of the system, and the DME tested
this, using data supplied by members of the MOHAC committee. The Research Agency
provided a consulting and quality control service during the development and testing
2
See the Glossary.
11
phases. Further discussion is included in the paragraph: Testing of Prototype System, on
page 24.
3.7 Presentation to MOHAC
A working version of the system was demonstrated to MOHAC in the GMSI boardroom on
5
th
October, 1998. Generally, the system was well received, and the consensus was that
the DME and the industry should go ahead with the implementation of the system.
MOHAC would consider certain details of implementation, which should perhaps include a
phased approach, both as to the number of mines involved, and the level of data required.
There is currently little or no legal requirement – or definition – with regard to reportable
diseases, so perhaps the first year or so could see only compensable diseases being
recorded.
A draft implementation plan was presented by the DME, and this is summarised and dis-
cussed in the following paragraph (3.8). The DME’s presentation looked forward to the
development of an Occupational Hygiene Database System at some stage, to be
integrated with the Occupational Diseases Database System. There was also a mention
of the possibility of using the Department’s home page on the Internet for the dissemina-
tion of statistical data, as well as helpful information and input forms.
The question of compliance with international practices was raised at this meeting,
particularly with regard to “denominator” data. It was suggested that either shifts worked,
or hours worked, should be included in the database, so that South African occupational
disease statistics may be compared with those of other countries. It is the view of the
Research Agency that whilst these statistics are useful, such requirements are outside the
scope of the current research project, whose scope was specifically limited in the Govern-
ment Gazette to be “South African focused.” These requirements should therefore be con-
sidered in the appropriate committee, and put forward as a change to the system.
Another issue that was raised, was that of confidentiality of personal data. This is
discussed in the paragraph: Testing of Prototype System, on page 24.
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