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
SKIN
NON-FATAL OCCUPATIONAL INJURY
DUST/LUNG
12%
12%
1%
4%
1%
4%
RESP TOX
POISONING
66%
TRAUMATIC INJURY
PHYSICAL
AGENTS
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
Interventions
Engineering
Administrative
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