Occupational Safety: Risk Factors, Prevention, and Techniques

Posted on Nov 9, 2024 in Other subjects

1. Safety at Work: Factors Involved in Accidents

1.1. Working Conditions

Working Conditions are defined as the set of variables that determine the performance of a specific task and the environment in which it takes place. These variables influence the operator’s health in three dimensions targeted by the WHO.

The historical evolution of working conditions has been influenced by the concepts of work and health. The last century’s industrial revolution brought mechanization and the division of labor. Some companies adopted security measures to reduce accidents caused by new machines and work systems. The first factory medical services were also launched to provide first aid to the injured. Today, we tend to identify working conditions with the quality of working life.

1.2. Safety at Work

1.2.1. Job Security: Security Types

Job security is defined as the preventive medical technique aimed at focusing on the fight against industrial accidents by preventing and controlling their consequences. There are two approaches: prevention and protection.

Depending on the techniques used, there are two types of security:

  • a) Scientific Security: It acts on the causes, identifying them based on natural phenomena that science can understand and experiment with. It is essentially Security Engineering.
  • b) Integrated Security: This originates in the planning of facilities and services, design teams, product selection and use, etc.

1.2.2. Factors and Causes Involved in Accidents

At the origin of any accident, we find hazardous conditions or dangerous actions as the immediate cause. Dangerous actions are rooted in routine operations, lack of care, and breaches of established work rules. Essentially, it indicates a lack of awareness and training.

Hazardous conditions, implicit in the process or resulting from deviations from work conditions, must be addressed through systematic inspections, reviews, engineering controls, etc.

Underlying causes are due to two factors:

  • Personal factors: Inadequate physical/mental ability, physical/mental stress, lack of knowledge, etc.
  • Work factors: Poor supervision, poor engineering, poor maintenance, wear and tear, etc.

1.3. Security Techniques

These techniques achieve security objectives, such as detecting and correcting risk factors for accidents at work and managing their consequences. These techniques include:

  • a) Risk analysis: Identification and risk assessment through the study of accidents.
  • b) Risk assessment: Hazard identification and risk estimation.
  • c) Control of risk: Reducing or eliminating both material damage and harm to the operator.

Another classification of these techniques depends on their scope, mode of operation, site of application, purpose, and causes:

  1. Analytical Techniques: Aim to analyze and assess the risks.
  2. Operative Techniques: Prevent accidents through the implementation of preventive or protective techniques, eliminating the causes of fires or reducing their effects.

2. Criteria for Risk Reduction in the Workshop

The combination of humans and their jobs, called the Man-Machine System, is a unit with a mutual relationship. We must study each factor and determine its influence on the overall situation.

Factors defining a work situation can be grouped as follows:

  • Security conditions
  • Physical environment of work
  • Chemical and biological contaminants
  • Workload
  • Organization of work
  • Simultaneous presence of several factors
  • Time of exposure

2.1. Risk Assessment

2.1.1. Identification of Risks in the Workplace

Frequently applied techniques for identifying risks include:

  • a) Document analysis
  • b) Statistical analysis
  • c) Direct observation
  • d) Surveys of employees

2.1.2. Risk Factors

These factors can be grouped into five areas:

  • Security risks: Machinery and equipment used, tools, workspaces, handling and transport, electricity, fire.
  • Physical risks: Refer to the physical environment of work and energies that affect the employee: noise, vibration, lighting, radiation, humidity, and temperature.
  • Chemical and biological contaminants: Substances that have short or long-term harmful effects on the worker, as well as human disease-causing organisms.
  • Workload: Refers to the physical (postures, movements, etc.) and mental effort required by the worker throughout their workday.
  • Organization of work: This section considers factors related to the task, schedule, pace of work, human relations, etc. The most common consequences are stress and dissatisfaction.

2.1.3. Measurement and Assessment of Risks in the Workplace

The measurement of identified risks is performed by applying specific techniques, which vary depending on the type of risk. Risk assessment compares the measurement results with recognized acceptable standard values.

Acceptable level of risk allows worker exposure without danger to their health. This determines whether preventive or remedial measures are necessary and what they could be.

2.2. Management of Prevention

Prevention aims to avoid risk materialization by preventing damage, while protection techniques prevent the consequences of damage. Prevention is prioritized, and protection acts after exhausting all prevention possibilities.

Prevention techniques include:

  1. Medical: Occupational medicine acts on three levels: prevention, care, and rehabilitation.
  2. Non-medical:
    • a) Industrial security: analytical and operational techniques.
    • b) Industrial hygiene: hygiene theory, field, analytical, and operational.
    • c) Ergonomics: synonymous with comfort.
    • d) Social policy: standards and institutions.
    • e) Psychology: recruitment and career guidance.

2.2.1. General Principles of Prevention

Occupational Health and Safety encompasses workplace activities aimed at eliminating or reducing risks that may harm workers’ health.

The general principles of prevention are:

  1. Avoiding risks.
  2. Assessing risks that cannot be removed.
  3. Combating risks at the source.
  4. Adapting the work to the person.
  5. Taking into account technological developments.
  6. Replacing the dangerous with what is not, or is to a lesser extent.
  7. Planning prevention.
  8. Giving precedence to collective protection over individual protection.
  9. Giving appropriate instructions to workers.

2.2.2. Methodology for Action in the Prevention of Occupational Risks

The Plan will establish the general principles of prevention: protection of safety and health, elimination or reduction of work risks, information, consultation, participation, and worker training.

Proactive planning should include at least the following stages:

  1. Initial Risk Assessment: Evaluate all risk factors present in the working environment when starting a new activity, making changes to the work situation, or assessing the development of previously taken preventive actions.
  2. Prioritization: Decide which risks to address as a priority based on severity, the number of workers exposed, and exposure time.

2.2.3. Specific Objectives of the Prevention Plan

The question arises: What do we want to achieve with the prevention plan?

The criteria for defining objectives are that they are realistic, measurable, and temporalized in different areas.

2.2.4. Actions to be Developed

These are the operative elements of the program and must be defined precisely to enable an implementation schedule and allocate the necessary resources.

2.2.5. Means and Budget

The means used to achieve the objectives must be clearly specified, mainly specifying the economic, material, and human resources.

2.2.6. Evaluation Criteria and Control

Apart from evaluating the results of preventive actions, it is necessary to establish a permanent monitoring system for preventive programs to correct possible deviations (deadlines, economic, etc.) and ensure that the planned measures are carried out.

Criteria must be established to ascertain the extent to which the plan’s goals have been achieved.

2.2.7. Planning for Total Control of Losses

This is the name given to an Integrated Safety System, developed by Frank F. Bird in the United States. Today, with the Association for the Prevention of Accidents, it is gaining ground in Spain as the best safety program.

2.2.8. Accident Investigation

Accident investigation is a security technique that analyzes accidents in detail to understand what happened and why. It aims to avoid repetition, not to assign blame.

Investigation should be carried out for all accidents, regardless of injury. Investigating accidents without injury allows us to prevent potentially more severe ones.

2.3. Agencies and Institutions in the Prevention of Occupational Risks

The government develops functions related to labor issues: promoting prevention, providing technical advice, monitoring and enforcement, and imposing penalties for breaches of prevention legislation. The most important agencies are the Inspectorate of Labor and Social Security and the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health at Work.

Certain powers belong to either the Central Government or the Autonomous Communities.

2.4. Occupational Health

Occupational Health studies the relationships and effects of pollutants (physical, chemical, and biological) on workers in their workplace or industrial environment.

Work activity produces environmental pollution factors classified as chemical, physical, and biological. These contaminants enter the human body through the following channels: respiratory, cutaneous, gastrointestinal, mucosal, and parenteral absorption.

2.4.1. Preventive Techniques

Improving working conditions means avoiding work-related damage and diseases and ensuring comfortable working conditions that do not harm workers physically, mentally, or socially, allowing for individual development through their work.

Industrial Hygiene: Encompasses techniques that modify the work environment to reduce aggressiveness and the emergence of diseases. This technique is based on the recognition, evaluation, and control of environmental factors.

2.4.2. Ergonomics

Ergonomics is the set of techniques aimed at adapting the workplace to the person. Its goals are to provide harmony between workers and their working environment, improve safety and the work environment, provide comfort and production efficiency, reduce physical and nervous strain, and create safe jobs.

This approach is invalid if it does not consider the employee as an active participant in improving their jobs.

2.4.3. Housekeeping in the Workplace

Cleanliness and order at work are considered aspects of the organization’s professionalism. Order allows for a suitable place for everything, and everything is kept in its allocated place. Cleaning complements order, including proper painting of spaces, waste removal, and cleaning of floors, ceilings, windows, etc.

2.5. Information, Training, and Participation of Workers

2.5.1. Information

Employees should strive to be informed about the risks they face and how to prevent them. While providing information does not guarantee safety, it may lead to an increase in claims.

2.5.2. Training

Training in Occupational Health and Safety aims to impart knowledge and change attitudes so that recipients can: exhibit desired preventative behavior and integrate elements to analyze situations and react appropriately.

The Occupational Health and Safety Act mandates the employer’s obligation to ensure adequate and appropriate education and training. This training will be conducted during working hours or at other times with a discount of the time invested in it.

2.5.3. Participation

Workers need direct participation in Occupational Health and Safety. This requires access to information on workplace hazards, involvement in achieving prevention objectives, communication of decisions, and the right to make proposals to improve safety and health protection levels in the enterprise.