Oberon Class Submarine Occupational Hygiene Project Final Report

Executive SummaryThe Centre for Military and Veterans' Health was tasked with creating a hazardexposure profile for Australian Oberon class submariners. These submarines, inservice during the period 1967 – 2000, have now been decommissioned and thus thisreport represents a retrospective exposure assessment.In developing the exposure profile, reference was made to the available scientific andtechnical literature. It rapidly became apparent that systematic occupational hygieneand health studies of Oberon class or even diesel electric submarines are rare and withfew exceptions, the quality of exposure information is poor. Beyond the literaturereview, the CMVH team, which included two senior occupational hygienists for thebulk of the work, visited the decommissioned HMAS ONSLOW, conducted focusgroups in Sydney and Rockingham, spoke with several experienced submariners andtriangulated the evidence to arrive at the hazard exposure profile and inform theconclusions and recommendations.Tables 4 and 5 detail the exposure profiles and level of evidence of the hazardsidentified in the project. The legend for the Table 4 and 5 is below:Legend* based on proximity to source, task and other factorsRating: low = low exposure relative to exposure criterion; significant = comparablewith or greater than exposure criterionQuality of evidence: good = published data under actual conditions; medium =professional judgement in conjunction with focus group information and observation;poor = insufficient, unavailable or presumptive4