7/21/2019 01 Concept & Definition
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Concept & Definition of Health & Safety
Occupational safety and health(OSH) also commonly referred to as
occupational health
and safety(OHS) or workplace health and safety(WHS) is an area
concerned with
thesafety,healthandwelfareof people engaged in work or
employment. The goals of
occupational safety and health programs include to foster a safe
and healthy work
environment.!"OSH may also protect co#workers, family mem$ers,
employers, customers,
and many others who might $e affected $y the workplace
environment. %n the &nited States
the term occupational health and safety is referred to as
occupational health and
occupational and non#occupational safety and includes safety for
activities outside work.'"
Occupational safety and health can $e important for moral,
legal, and financial reasons. %n
common#law urisdictions, employers have a common law duty
(reflecting an underlying
moral o$ligation) to take reasona$le care for the safety of
their employees, "Statute law may
$uild upon this to impose additional general duties, introduce
specific duties and create
government $odies with powers to regulate workplace safety
issues* details of this will vary
from urisdiction to urisdiction. +ood OSH practices can also
reduce employee inury and
illness related costs, including medical care, sick leave and
disa$ility $enefit costs.
s defined $y the World Health Organi-ation(WHO) occupational
health deals with all
aspects of health and safety in the workplace and has a strong
focus on primary prevention
of ha-ards./"Healthhas $een defined as a state of complete
physical, mental and social
well#$eing and not merely the a$sence of disease or infirmity.
0"Occupational health is a
multidisciplinary field of healthcareconcerned with ena$ling an
individual to undertake
theiroccupation,in the way that causes least harm to their
health. Health has $een defined
as %t contrasts, for e1ample, with the promotion of health and
safety at work, which is
concerned with preventing harm from any incidentalha-ards,
arising in the workplace.
Since !203, the %nternational 4a$our Organi-ation(%4O) and
theWorld Health
Organi-ation(WHO) have shared a common definition of
occupational health. %t was adopted$y the 5oint %4O6WHO 7ommittee
on Occupational Health at its first session in !203 and
revised at its twelfth session in !220. The definition
reads*
The main focus in occupational health is on three different
o$ectives* (i) the maintenance
and promotion of workers8 health and working capacity9 (ii) the
improvement of working
environment and work to $ecome conducive to safety and health
and (iii) development of
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safetyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safetyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_of_lifehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_of_lifehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employmenthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_safety_and_health#cite_note-1http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_safety_and_health#cite_note-1http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_safety_and_health#cite_note-Fanning-2http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_safety_and_health#cite_note-WAgdoc-3http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organizationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_safety_and_health#cite_note-4http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_safety_and_health#cite_note-5http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_safety_and_health#cite_note-5http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcarehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hazardshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hazardshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Labour_Organizationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organizationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organizationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organizationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safetyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_of_lifehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employmenthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_safety_and_health#cite_note-1http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_safety_and_health#cite_note-Fanning-2http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_safety_and_health#cite_note-WAgdoc-3http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organizationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_safety_and_health#cite_note-4http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_safety_and_health#cite_note-5http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcarehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hazardshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Labour_Organizationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organizationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organization
