Background and objectives: Long term exposure to high levels of cement dust is one of the most important environmental risk factors in cement industries that adversely affect employee's respiratory system. Provided that achieving sustainable development mainly relies on healthy workers, this study aimed at assessing cement dust concentration and its free SiO₂ content in an Iranian Portland Cement Industry.

 Methods: In a cross - sectional study, airborne dust levels was investigated by collecting 64 personal and 35 environmental samples at both inhalable and respirable dust sizes. Dust concentrations were determined by deploying personal samplers in the breathing zone of workers. SiO₂ fractions were also measured in 4 samples collected from different part of the factory.

 Results: Arithmetic average concentrations of inhalable and respirable dust in personal sampling campaign were 58 and 13 mg m^-3, respectively. Respective values for inhalable and respirable dust in environmental sampling campaign were 154 and 27 mg m^-3. Dust concentrations in 90% of environmental samples and 80% of personal samples exceeded those occupational exposure limit values set for inert dusts i.e. Portland Cement. The average free SiO₂ fraction in analyzed samples was 2.86% varying from 2.33% in "packing and loading" area to 3.67 % in "raw mill" section.

  Conclusion: Free SiO₂ fraction as well as the concentrations of cement dust in this study is much higher than those of occupational exposure limit proposed by Iranian Technical Committee of Occupational Health.

  Background & objectives: The hand is one of the sensivitive organs of the body. The hand injuries usually occur in workers and are one of the most common causes of disabilies. The aim of this study was to investigate the causes of the hand injuries leading to defect among industrial workers and farmers’ reffered to emergency department of Fatemi hospital in Ardabil.

  Methods: In a cross-sectional study, from January 2009 to Agust 2010, 100 patients with hand injuries were included. The data were collected by the chek list including: category of severity, time and type of incident, and location and cause of the injuri and then were analyzed statistically by Chi-square test.

  Results : Most of the industrial workers (58%) ranging as 20–29 years old and had 38 years as an average. Sixty two percent of them were working more than 8 hours per day and 64.7% experienced severe injuries in their hands. Amputation showed to be the most common injury in this group. Most of the farmers (30%) were in age group 20-29 years and from them 70% were working less than 8 hours per day. In this group, 54% of injuries occurred in left hand and the most common type of injuries was amputation (54%).

  Conclusion: The highest incidence of hand injuries has been shown to occur among industrial workers with 28 years as mean and working for more than 8 hours per day without any formal training before starting to work. So, it seems to be need we use the expert workers with the high level background and don’t use adolescents under 15 years.