Occupational Health and Safety: A Comprehensive Guide
Occupational Health
Occupational health aims to promote and maintain the highest degree of physical, mental, and social well-being of workers in all occupations. It seeks to prevent deterioration of health caused by working conditions, protect workers from risks arising from hazardous agents, and find and keep workers in a manner appropriate to their psychological, sociological, and physical abilities. In short, occupational health strives to adapt work to man and each man to his work.
Occupational Health and Safety Disciplines
1.1 Industrial Safety
Industrial safety is an environmental technician whose purpose is to prevent accidents by performing activities within industrial operations on people, machines, processes, materials, and the work environment.
1.2 Ergonomics
Ergonomics is the scientific study of man at work, particularly the application of multidisciplinary knowledge in adapting work to man and man to work.
1.3 Occupational Medicine
Occupational medicine is the discipline that, based on the previous three, assesses and monitors the health of workers to develop actions at different levels of health prevention.
Occupational Disease
An occupational disease is a condition directly caused by the exercise of a person’s profession or work that causes disability or death (ART 7 16 744 LAW). The list of diseases is reviewed every three years (DS 109). An affiliate may prove to a professional manager that they contracted a disease as a direct result of their occupation or work.
Unlike other types of illnesses, occupational diseases have a limitation: they must have originated in employment and occupations that pose risks. The cause-effect relationship is directly between the occupational environment and human damage, without any alternative. It is crucial to recognize and evaluate etiologic agents present in the environment.
Factors Influencing Occupational Disease
- The presence of a contaminant in the environment.
- The contaminant’s ability to produce damage to the health of people or develop a toxic action on the human body.
- A contaminant concentration that exceeds allowable limits or a deficiency in the workplace.
- Exposure of the individual to the agent for a sufficient time for it to act on the body.
- Personal susceptibility.
The mere existence of environmental agents in the workplace does not necessarily determine the occurrence of an occupational disease. For that to happen, the above conditions must be met.
I. Occupational Hygiene
Occupational hygiene is the art and science dedicated to the anticipation, recognition, and control of risks and stressors that originate in the workplace or in connection with it and that may endanger the health and welfare of workers. It also considers their possible impact on neighboring communities and the environment in general.
- Art: Virtue, willingness, and ability to do anything. Expression or manifestation of experience.
- Science: Knowledge of real things by their principles and causes. Applying the scientific method.
- Danger: A situation or condition that represents the possibility of occurrence of any damage or loss.
- Risk: The probability that this damage occurs.
Objectives of Occupational Hygiene
The objectives of occupational hygiene are to protect and promote worker health, protect the environment, and contribute to safe and sustainable development.
Sustainable Development
Sustainable development ensures that development meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.
II. What Does the Occupational Hygienist Do?
- Anticipa: Study, think, question, imagine.
- Recognizes: Investigate, hear, inspect, observe, question.
- Evaluates: Monitors, samples, measures, interprets, questions.
- Controls: Imagine, educates, designs, questions, explains, advocates, recommends, motivates.
- Knows: The legal framework for the practice of their profession. Education and security.
V. Occupational Hygiene is Multidimensional and Interdisciplinary
The hygienist is, in part:
- Advocate
- Medical Advisor
- Professor
- Engineer, etc.
Summaries of the Work of the Occupational Hygienist
Occupational hygienists perform continuous monitoring to detect, eliminate, and control hazardous agents and factors before they cause a detrimental effect on workers and the environment. This is the role of the occupational hygienist.
Why Do Hygienists Work?
- Productive
- Government
- Universities
- Unions
- Companies (advisors – consultants)
- Freelance work
Control Methods Used by Hygienists
Pollutant Control
- Elimination
- Substitution of the pollutant (with a less toxic or harmful one)
- Isolation or enclosure of the process
- Capture of the pollutant at the source (local exhaust or general)
- Isolation of workers
- Provision of worker PPE
Classification of Control Measures
1. Engineering Controls
Engineering controls are technical measures that usually require the modification of some process or mechanical structures. Their purpose is to eliminate or reduce the use, generation, or release of hazardous agents at the source or, if the source cannot be eliminated, to prevent or reduce the spread of hazardous agents in the working environment. This can be achieved by enclosing the source, removing the time they leave the source, interfering with their spread, reducing their concentration or intensity, etc.
2. Work Practices
Work practices can be implemented, for example, in relation to works where the operator’s position can influence exposure, depending on how much they lean. The worker’s position may affect the conditions of exposure (e.g., breathing zone in relation to the pollution source, the possibility of absorption through the skin).
3. Personal Measures
Personal measures involve placing a protective barrier for the worker at the critical point of entry of the hazardous agent (mouth, nose, skin, ears), i.e., through the use of personal protection tools.
Important: Other preventive measures include education and personal training, personal hygiene, and limiting the duration of exposure.
PRP (Preventive Risk Program)
The ideal approach is an integrated early preventive action, including:
- Evaluation of the effects on workers’ health and environmental impact before design and installation, if a new workplace.
- Choice of safer, less dangerous, and less polluting technology (cleaner production).
- Convenient location from the environmental point of view.
- Proper design, with a distribution and appropriate control technology, which provides safe handling and disposal of waste and waste resulting.