NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Occupational safety and health

Occupational safety and health is a cross-disciplinary area concerned with protecting the safety, health and welfare of people engaged in work or employment. As a secondary effect, it may also protect co-workers, family members, employers, customers, suppliers, nearby communities, and other members of the public who are impacted by the workplace environment. Interdisciplinarity is the act of drawing from two or more academic disciplines and integrating their insights to work together in pursuit of a common goal. ... For other uses, see Safety (disambiguation). ... This article is about the economic and philosophical concept. ... This article is about work. ...

Since 1950, the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have shared a common definition of occupational health. It was adopted by the Joint ILO/WHO Committee on Occupational Health at its first session in 1950 and revised at its twelfth session in 1995. The definition reads: "Occupational health should aim at: the promotion and maintenance of the highest degree of physical, mental and social well-being of workers in all occupations; the prevention amongst workers of departures from health caused by their working conditions; the protection of workers in their employment from risks resulting from factors adverse to health; the placing and maintenance of the worker in an occupational environment adapted to his physiological and psychological capabilities; and, to summarize, the adaptation of work to man and of each man to his job." The International Labour Organization (ILO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that deals with labour issues. ... WHO redirects here. ...

The reasons for establishing good occupational safety and health standards are frequently identified as:

Moral - An employee should not have to risk injury at work, nor should others associated with the work environment.
Economic - many governments realize that poor occupational safety and health performance results in cost to the State (e.g. through social security payments to the incapacitated, costs for medical treatment, and the loss of the "employability" of the worker). Employing organisations also sustain costs in the event of an incident at work (such as legal fees, fines, compensatory damages, investigation time, lost production, lost goodwill from the workforce, from customers and from the wider community).
Legal - Occupational safety and health requirements may be reinforced in civil law and/or criminal law; it is accepted that without the extra "encouragement" of potential regulatory action or litigation, many organisations would not act upon their implied moral obligations.

1 National implementing legislation
2 Hazards, risks, outcomes
3 Risk assessment
4 Common workplace hazard groups
5 See also
6 External links
7 Further reading

Morality (from the Latin manner, character, proper behavior) has three principal meanings. ... This article is about the human activity. ... Social security primarily refers to social welfare service concerned with social protection, or protection against socially recognized conditions, including poverty, old age, disability, unemployment and others. ... Employability is about having the capability to gain initial employment, maintain employment and obtain new employment if required. ... For other uses, see Law (disambiguation). ... This article is about civil law within the common law legal system. ... The term criminal law, sometimes called penal law, refers to any of various bodies of rules in different jurisdictions whose common characteristic is the potential for unique and often severe impositions as punishment for failure to comply. ...

National implementing legislation

Different states take different approaches to legislation, regulation, and enforcement.

In the European Union, member states have enforcing authorities to ensure that the basic legal requirements relating to occupational safety and health are met. In many EU countries, there is strong cooperation between employer and worker organisations (e.g. Unions) to ensure good OSH performance as it is recognized this has benefits for both the worker (through maintenance of health) and the enterprise (through improved productivity and quality). In 1996 the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work was founded. An international organization (also called intergovernmental organization) is an organization of international scope or character. ... For the Talib Kweli album Quality (album) Quality can refer to a. ... The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) aims to make Europeâ€™s workplaces safer, healthier and more productive. ...

Member states of the European Union have all transposed into their national legislation a series of directives that establish minimum standards on occupational safety and health. These directives (of which there are about 20 on a variety of topics) follow a similar structure requiring the employer to assess the workplace risks and put in place preventive measures based on a hierarchy of control. This hierarchy starts with elimination of the hazard and ends with personal protective equipment. // Personal protective equipment (PPE) refers to protective clothing, helmets, goggles, or other gear designed to protect the wearers body or clothing from injury by electrical hazards, heat, chemicals, and infection, for job-related occupational safety and health purposes, and in sports, martial arts, combat, etc. ...

In the UK, health and safety legislation is drawn up and enforced by the Health and Safety Executive and local authorities (the local council) under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. Increasingly in the UK the regulatory trend is away from prescriptive rules, and towards risk assessment. Recent major changes to the laws governing asbestos and fire safety management embrace the concept of risk assessment. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a country in western Europe, and member of the Commonwealth of Nations, the G8, the European Union, and NATO. Usually known simply as the United Kingdom, the UK, or (inaccurately) as Great Britain or Britain, the UK has four constituent... The Health and Safety Executive (HSE), reporting to the Health and Safety Commission, is the British government body responsible for the regulation of risks to health and safety in the UK. It was created as a result of the Health and Safety at Work, etc, Act 1974, and has since... The Health and Safety at Work etc. ...

In the USA, the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970[1]created both the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). OSHA, in the U.S. Department of Labor, is responsible for developing and enforcing workplace safety and health regulations. NIOSH, in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is focused on research, information, education, and training in occupational safety and health. The Occupational Safety and Health Act, known more generally as the OSH Act, was signed into US law by President Richard M. Nixon on December 29, 1970. ... The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) is the United States federal agency responsible for conducting research and making recommendations for the prevention of work-related injury and illness. ... OSHA logo The United States Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is an agency of the United States Department of Labor. ...

OSHA has been regulating occupational safety and health since 1971. Occupational safety and health regulation of a limited number of specifically defined industries was in place for several decades before that, and broad regulations by some individual states was in place for many years prior to the establishment of OSHA.

In Canada, workers are covered by provincial or federal labour codes depending on the sector in which they work. Workers covered by federal legislation (including those in mining, transportation, and federal employment) are covered by the Canada Labour Code; all other workers are covered by the health and safety legislation of the province they work in. The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS), an agency of the Government of Canada, was created in 1978 by an Act of Parliament. The act was based on the belief that all Canadians had "...a fundamental right to a healthy and safe working environment." . CCOHS is mandated to promote safe and healthy workplaces to help prevent work-related injuries and illnesses. The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS) is the agency of the federal Government of Canada which seeks to promote safe and healthy workplaces and prevent work-related injuries and illnesses. ...

In Malaysia, the Department of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) under the Ministry of Human Resource is responsible to ensure that the safety, health and welfare of workers in both the public and private sector is upheld. DOSH is responsible to enforce the Factory and Machinery Act 1969 and the Occupational Safety and Health Act 1994. The Factory and Machinery Act 1967 (Act 139) is a piece of Malaysian legislation which was enacted in 1967 as Act No. ... The Occupational Safety and Health Act 1994 (Act 514) is a piece of Malaysian legislation which has been gazetted on the 25 February 1994 by the Malaysian Parliament. ...

Occupational safety and health may involve interaction among many cognate disciplines, including occupational medicine, occupational (or industrial) hygiene, public health, safety engineering, health physics, ergonomics, toxicology, epidemiology, industrial relations, public policy, sociology, and psychology. Occupational Hygiene is both a technical field of study and a profession. ... Public health is the study and practice of addressing threats to the health of a community. ... Safety engineering is an applied science strongly related to systems engineering and the subset System Safety Engineering. ... Health physics is a field of science concerned with radiation physics and radiation biology with the goal of informing the safe use of ionizing radiation. ... Ergonomics is the scientific discipline concerned with designing according to the human needs, and the profession that applies theory, principles, data and methods to design in order to optimize human well-being and overall system performance. ... Toxicology (from the Greek words toxicos and logos [1]) is the study of the adverse effects of chemicals on living organisms [2]. It is the study of symptoms, mechanisms, treatments and detection of poisoning, especially the poisoning of people. ... Epidemiology is the study of factors affecting the health and illness of populations, and serves as the foundation and logic of interventions made in the interest of public health and preventive medicine. ... A Boeing employee speaks at a trade union rally The field of industrial relations looks at the relationship between management and workers, particularly groups of workers represented by a union. ... Public policy is a course of action or inaction chosen by public authorities to address a problem. ... Sociology (from Latin: socius, companion; and the suffix -ology, the study of, from Greek Î»ÏŒÎ³Î¿Ï‚, lÃ³gos, knowledge [1]) is the scientific or systematic study of society, including patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and culture[2]. Areas studied in sociology can range from the analysis of brief contacts between anonymous... {redirect|Psychological science|the journal|Psychological Science (journal)}} Not to be confused with Phycology. ...

Hazards, risks, outcomes

The terminology used in OSH varies between states, but generally speaking:

A hazard is something that can cause harm if not controlled.
The outcome is the harm that results from an uncontrolled hazard.
A risk is a combination of the probability that a particular outcome will occur and the severity of the harm involved.

“Hazard”, “risk”, and “outcome” are used in other fields to describe e.g. environmental damage, or damage to equipment. However, in the context of OSH, “harm” generally describes the direct or indirect degradation, temporary or permanent, of the physical, mental, or social well-being of workers. For example, repetitively carrying out manual handling of heavy objects is a hazard. The outcome would be a musculoskeletal disorder (MSD). The risk can be expressed numerically, (e.g. a 0.5 or 50/50 chance of the outcome occurring during a year), qualitatively as "high/medium/low", or using a more complicated classification scheme. Look up hazard in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... For the Parker Brothers board game, see Risk (game) For other uses, see Risk (disambiguation). ... Manual handling of loads (MHL) is any of the following activities carried out by one or more workers: lifting, holding, putting down, pushing, pulling, carrying or moving of a load. ... Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) can affect the bodys muscles, joints, tendons, ligaments and nerves. ...

Risk assessment

Modern occupational safety and health legislation usually demands that a risk assessment be carried out prior to making an intervention. This assessment should: Risk assessment is considered as the innitial and periodical step in a risk management process. ...

Identify the hazards
Identify all affected by the hazard and how
Evaluate the risk
Identify and prioritise the required actions

The calculation of risk is based on the likelihood or probability of the harm being realised and the severity of the consequences. This can be expressed mathematically as a quantitative assessment (by assigning low, medium and high likelihood and severity with integers and multiplying them to obtain a risk factor, or qualitatively as a description of the circumstances by which the harm could arise. Probability is the likelihood or chance that something is the case or will happen. ... Severity is an upcoming First Person Shooter (FPS) being developed for both the PC and console systems. ... A scale for measuring mass A quantitative property is one that exists in a range of magnitudes, and can therefore be measured. ... A risk factor is a variable associated with an increased risk of disease or infection but risk factors are not necessarily causal. ...

The assessment should be recorded and reviewed periodically and whenever there is a significant change to work practices. The assessment should include practical recommendations to control the risk. Once recommended controls are implemented, the risk should be re-calculated to determine of it has been lowered to an acceptable level. Generally speaking, newly introduced controls should lower risk by one level, i.e, from high to medium or from medium to low

The precautionary principle is an increasingly used method for reducing potential chemical or biological OSH risks. The precautionary principle is a moral and political principle which states that if an action or policy might cause severe or irreversible harm to the public, in the absence of a scientific consensus that harm would not ensue, the burden of proof falls on those who would advocate taking the...

Common workplace hazard groups

Harry McShane, age 16, 1908. Pulled into machinery in a factory in Cincinnati. His arm was ripped off at the shoulder and his leg broken. No compensation paid. Photograph by Lewis Hine.

Workplace hazards are often grouped into physical hazards, physical agents, chemical agents, biological agents, and psychosocial issues. Image File history File links Size of this preview: 427 Ã— 600 pixelsFull resolution (729 Ã— 1024 pixel, file size: 103 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) File historyClick on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time. ... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 427 Ã— 600 pixelsFull resolution (729 Ã— 1024 pixel, file size: 103 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) File historyClick on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time. ... Cincinnati, Ohio viewed from the SW, across the Ohio River from Kentucky. ... Power house mechanic working on steam pump, 1920 Lewis Wickes Hine (September 26, 1874 â€“ November 3, 1940), was an American photographer. ... Chemical warfare is warfare (and associated military operations) using the toxic properties of chemical substances to kill, injure or incapacitate an enemy. ... A biological agent is an infectious disease that can be used in bioterrorism or biological warfare. ...

Physical hazards include:

Slips and trips
Falls from height
Workplace transport
Dangerous machinery
Electricity
Heavy metals

Physical agents include: Falling is movement due to gravity, but also has other uses not directly related to gravity. ... Sign warning of possible electric shock hazard An electric shock can occur upon contact of a humans body with any source of voltage high enough to cause sufficient current flow through the muscles or hair. ... For other uses, see Heavy metal (disambiguation). ...

noise
vibration
ionizing radiation
heat and cold stress
lighting

Chemical agents, include This article is about noise as in sound. ... Oscillation is the variation, typically in time, of some measure about a central value (often a point of equilibrium) or between two or more different states. ... Radiation hazard symbol. ... Not to be confused with lightning. ... The chemical agent in the context of a work place hazard is a chemical that may be hazardous due to its physical or toxicological characteristics. ...

Psychosocial issues include: For other uses, see Solvent (disambiguation). ... A sampling of Bacillus anthracisâ€”Anthrax A biological agent is an infectious disease or toxin that can be used in bioterrorism or biological warfare. ...

Work related stress, whose causal factors include excessive working time and overwork
Violence from outside the organisation
Bullying (sometimes called mobbing) which may include emotional, verbal, and Sexual harassment

Other issues include: In medical terms, stress is the disruption of homeostasis through physical or psychological stimuli. ... For other uses, see Violence (disambiguation). ... A very common image in many schools around the world. ... Emotional abuse refers to a long-term situation in which one person uses his or her power or influence to adversely affect the mental well-being of another. ... For the band, see Verbal Abuse. ... Sexual harassment is harassment or unwelcome attention of a sexual nature. ...

Reproductive hazards
Work environment factors, such as temperature, humidity, lighting, welfare
Avoidance of musculoskeletal disorders by the employment of good ergonomic design
Particulate inhalation

Prevention of fire often comes within the remit of health and safety professionals as well. For other uses, see Temperature (disambiguation). ... The term humidity is usually taken in daily language to refer to relative humidity. ... Not to be confused with lightning. ... The human musculoskeletal system is the musculoskeletal system that gives us the ability to move. ... Ergonomics (from Greek ergon work and nomoi natural laws) is the study of designing objects to be better adapted to the shape of the human body and/or to correct the users posture. ... Particulates, alternatively referred to as particulate matter (PM), aerosols or fine particles, are tiny particles of solid or liquid suspended in a gas. ... For other uses, see Fire (disambiguation). ...

External links

ILO International Occupational Safety and Health Information Centre
US CDC page on Workplace Safety & Health
UK Health & Safety Executive - Getting started for Small Business
Society for Occupational Health Psychology
Workers Health and Safety Centre - Leading Canadian workplace health and safety training organization
Occubus - an Occupational Medicine and Health wiki

Contents

National implementing legislation

Hazards, risks, outcomes

Risk assessment

Common workplace hazard groups

See also

General

Government organizations

Laws

Fields

Workplace environmental standards

Other

External links

Further reading

Contents

National implementing legislation GA_googleFillSlot("encyclopedia_square");

Hazards, risks, outcomes

Risk assessment

Common workplace hazard groups

See also

General

Government organizations

Laws

Fields

Workplace environmental standards

Other

External links

Further reading

National implementing legislation