Workplace Health and Safety: Hazards and Prevention

Posted on Feb 6, 2025 in Medicine & Health

Working Conditions

Any feature of the work that might have a significant influence on the generation of safety hazards and worker health.

Conditions Affecting Work

Working conditions and how these may affect, negatively or positively:

• Environment
• Facilities
• Machines
• Organization

Young people are 50% more likely to suffer an accident at work.

Risk Factors at Work / Group Risk Factors

Derivatives of the security:

• Structural and equipment management

Derivatives of environmental conditions:

• Physical, chemical, and biological

Derivatives of the load and work organization:

• Load: Physical or Mental
• Organization: Shift work, psychosocial factors

How to Avoid Business Risks

• Preventive action procedures and principles
• Occupational risk assessment phases

Preventive action: Action to be taken by the employer obliged to ensure the health and quality of work of their employees. To prevent all types of accidents and illnesses.

And given all the information and training to employees.

Assessment of Risks

Process to estimate the magnitude of risks that have not been avoided, obtaining information, for the employer to make a decision to appropriate and adapt the necessary measures for that matter.

Get Info, identify, assess, estimate

Damages Arising Out of Work

• Work Accidents
• Occupational Diseases

Other Damages Arising Out of Work

• Job dissatisfaction
• Stress
• Professional fatigue

Business Risks

Structural

Built-up area where workers carry out their work or work tasks.

• Structural safety: pillars, shelves
• Spaces and hazardous areas: local dimensions and separation between machines
• Other: poor soil, holes, unevenness, windows

Risks:

• Personal Falls, falling objects, bumps, and cuts

Measures:

• Training and information
• Appropriate structures
• Dimensions that allow work safely and ergonomically
• Stable maintenance
• Use of protective measures

Facilities

• Gas facilities, electricity, water (general supplies)
• Electrical installations. Contact: burns, suffocation, cardiac arrest
• Electrical installations. Indirect contact. Fires and explosions, falls from the discharge.

Physical Agents

• Lighting of 25 halls to 1000 thousand
• Temperature 17 and 27 closed sites and sites open between 14 and 25 humidity between 30 and 70%
• Dehydration, hypothermia, chills, local body parts, heat exhaustion, stress
• Daily noise level of 80 and 87 dB in 8 hours
• 140 peak level should never exceed this limit. Pain threshold.
• 1 Hz low-frequency vibration, 1-20 Low frequency and high 20-1000 Hz
• Radiation. Ionizing are undetectable to our senses, not ionizable convene us in everyday life and are less dangerous

Chemical Agents

Organic or inorganic substance devoid of life itself, which may be present in various forms in the work environment and affect our health.

• Airway
• Skin
• Gastrointestinal
• Parenteral

Biological Agents

• Bacteria
• Viruses
• Fungi
• Parasites

Risk Factors Derived from the Charge and Organization of Work

Physical Workload

• Physical effort
• Working postures
• Manual handling of loads
• Musculoskeletal lesions, physical and chronic fatigue

Mental Load

• Pace of work, type
• Mental and chronic fatigue

Organizational and Psychological Risks

Risks related to poor organization of work, which may affect the health of workers and the institution.

• Poor relationship with coworkers
• Sudden changes of schedules
• Monotonous work
• Intensive days
• Unstable jobs
• Night jobs
• Lack of motivation

Job Dissatisfaction

Degree of discomfort experienced by a farm worker on his job.

Stress

Situation of prolonged emotional stress alters time worker.