Introduction to Occupational Safety and Health
An Approach to addressing injuries and illnesses at work
Global Burden of Occupational Injury and Disease/Year
Injuries Diseases Total
Fatal 100,000 700,000 800,000
Non-Fatal 99,000,000 10,300,000 109,300,000
100,000,000 11,000,000 111,000,000
*From Leigh, et al., Epidemiology 10(5):626-31, September 1999
*Estimated Annual Incidence of Occ Injury & Disease Worldwide
# New Cases/year
Injuries 100,688,000
Diseases
Pesticide poisoning 109,000
Other poisoning 122,000
Cancer 191,000
Mental disorders 318,000
Pneumoconioses 453,000
Noise-induced hearing loss 1,628,000
Skin disorders 1,895,000
Chronic respiratory disease 2,631,000
Musculoskeletal disorders 3,337,000
Global Burden Non-fatal Occ Illness & Injury, WHO
NON-FATAL OCCUPATIONAL INJURY
12%1%4%1%4%
66%
12%
SKIN
DUST/LUNG
RESP TOX
POISONING
PHYSICALAGENTS
REP TRAUMA
ALL OTHER
TRAUMATIC INJURY
Primary Prevention
• Identify and eliminate hazards
• Systems to protect workers health and safety
• Eliminate and reduce exposure
Secondary and Tertiary Prevention
• first aid
• treatment
• emergency services
Introduction to Occupational Safety and Health
• Identification– recognition– assessment
• Control– eliminate– manage
– personal protection
• Prevention
Framework
Framework• Awareness• Qualitative Assessment
– Exposure– Health
• Hazard Judgment– Acceptable– Unacceptable– Uncertain
• Quantitative Assessment– Exposure– Health
• Risk communication
InterventionsEngineeringAdministrative
Framework
• Awareness of Exposure Hazard– Sentinel Event– Observations
• personal
• newspaper
• reports
– Complaints– Near misses
Framework
• Qualitative Assessment– Exposure assessment
• epidemiology
• reports
• historical data
– Health assessment• toxicology
• surveillance reports
• historical data
Framework
• Exposure Profile and Hazard Judgement Where do I begin?????
– Acceptable --Unacceptable --Uncertain
Framework
• Hazard Judgement----uncertain– quantitative health assessment
• medical surveillance
• health surveys
– quantitative exposure assessment• personal monitoring
• workplace/environmental monitoring
• exposure surveys
Framework
• Risk communication– principles of risk communication– policy
Resources• Training
• Internet
– World Health Organization
– International Labour Organization
– Other
• Local Expertise
– scientists
– physicians
– nurses
– public health practitioners
– health educators
• Reference Materials
– journals
– ILO encyclopedia
Cost of injuries and illnesses to employers
• Payment for work not performed
• Medical payments
• Reduction or interruption of services
• Administrative costs
• Replacing injured or ill worker
• Training new workers
• Poor public relations
Course Objectives• Recognize a sentinel event as a warning signal that
preventive measures need to be taken
• Conduct a basic incident investigation
• List the occupational hazards in a complex manufacturing workplace
• List the adverse health outcomes from exposures in this workplace
• Interpret data from a follow-up investigation of this workplace.
Course Objectives• Develop a surveillance program that serves as an evaluation
tool for health risks in tanneries
• Develop a questionnaire surveillance tool for monitoring hazards and adverse health outcomes in industry
• Discuss issues related to worker surveillance
• Present data in a form that can be understood by employees and policy makers, including employers and local/state enforcement agencies
• Apply information gathered from above activities to develop policy recommendations for the tannery industry
Skills • develop incident investigation questions
• create a report from incident investigation
• take a work history
• categorize hazards
• develop workplace exposure and health questions
• organize questions into a surveillance tool
• administer a survey
• communicate findings of a survey
Defining Terms
• Hazardous Source
• Hazardous Agent
• Hazardous Effect
• Assessment
• Sentinel
• Tannery – Complex Manufacturing Process