Occupational health and safety management

This book is for occupational health and safety management, teach to third year students of public health

1. Occupational Health
Lecture 1
Introduction

2. Today’s lecture
Introduction Occupational Health

4. What is Occupational Health?

6. Objectives of the Occupational Health
Course
•To be aware of Occupational hazards and illness
•To gain understanding of ways to assess these
factors (risks).
•To be able to control or minimize these factors in
order to prevent or minimize the occurrence of
the disease.
•To be able to deliver effective education and
awareness to the workforce to prevent work
related illness.

7. Learning outcomes
•By the end of this course, the students will be able to:
1.Describe major pathways of human exposure to hazards in
environmental and occupational settings.
2.Describe major effects of occupational exposures on human
health.
3.Gain basic knowledge on physiological, psychosocial and
genetic factors that can affect susceptibility to adverse
health outcome following exposure to occupational hazards.
4.Describe basic strategies for assessing, preventing and
controlling health and safety hazards in occupational setting.
5.Identify major regulations, programs and stakeholders
related to occupational health hazards.

8. Course contents
1.History and importance of Occupational health and Public
Heath and occupational health.
2.Assessing the risks and controlling risk.
3.Occupational injuries.
4.Physical factors (Heat stress, Lighting, Noise, Radiation).
5.Chemical: dust and chemical substances.
6.Biological factors.
7.Psycho-social and agronomical factors.
8.Health and safety at work: regulations
9.Occupational health diseases.
10.Case Studies.
11.National and international guidelines related to occupational
health and industries hygiene.
12. Report on a visit to occupational work place.

9. What is Occupational Health?
•“Occupationalhealthdealswithallaspectsof
healthandsafetyintheworkplaceandhasa
strongfocusonprimarypreventionofhazards’’.
•OccupationalHealthisthepromotionand
maintenanceofthehighestdegreeofphysical,
mentalandsocialwell-beingofworkersinall
occupationsbypreventingdeparturesfrom
health,controllingrisksandtheadaptationof
worktopeople,andpeopletotheirjobs.
(ILO/WHO1950)

10. Objectives of Occupational Health Program
•Joint ILO/WHO committee on Occupational Health,
Geneva, 1995, set out the objectives of an
Occupational Health Program as follows:
•To maintain and promote workers’ health and
working capacity.
•To improve the working environment and make it
more conductive to safety and health.
•To develop work organization and the working
culture to support health and Safety and promote a
positive social climate and smooth operation, which
can also enhance productivity.

11. •Occupational Health, and health safety
personnel support by advising on aspect of
the job that may affect the health of
individual, and by advising management on
both mental and physical health-related
matters concerning the individual.

12. Who applies occupational health in
their profession?
Occupational health interact with the following
fields:
•occupational medicine.
•occupational (or industrial) hygiene.
•public health professionals .
•Health and safety engineering .
•industrial engineering.
•Ergonomists .

13. History of Occupational health
•Bernardino Ramazzini
(1633 –1714)
•De MorbisArtificum
Diatriba("Diseases of
Workers").
•outlined the health hazards
of chemicals, dust, metals,
repetitive or violent
motions, odd postures, and
other disease-causative
agents encountered by
workers in 52 occupations

14. Occupational Health in context of
Public Health
•In 1920, C.E.A. Winslow defined public health
as "the science and art of preventing disease,
prolonging life and promoting health through
the organized efforts and informed choices of
society, organizations, public and private,
communities and individuals."

15. Public health and Occupational
Health
•Workplace accidents can be reduced by using
epidemiology so that causes can be determined and
preventive strategies can be developed.
•chronic diseases that are developing in a large
number of workers as they age, can be slowed or
prevented through workplace health education and
health promotion programs.
•This is provided by public health departments and
agencies as they have the experience and incentive
to keep the workplace healthy and free from disease
and injuries .

16. Health Assessment
•The fitness to work framework Murugiah,
Thornboryand Harriss, 2002 is a useful tool
for such assessment. It considers four aspects:
1.Personal Aspect
2.Work Characteristics
3.Work environment
4.Legal aspects

17. Health Assessment
Personal Aspects
•Skill levels
•Qualifications
•Past experience
•Physical attributes
•Psychological attributes
•Techniques, speed etc.
Work Characteristics
•Mechanical load
•Duration
•Movement
•Work pause sequence
•Shift pattern

18. Health Assessment
Work environment
•Safety
•Potential of exposure to
Hazards
•Potential exposure to
chemicals
•Aspects of the thermal
environment
•Moving and handling loads
•Characteristics of the
workplace
•Welfare provision
•Standard of welfare facilities
Legal aspects
•Common Law
•Acts of parliament
•Regulations
•Codes of practice

19. Risk Assessment
•It is important to assess the risk at work .
•Good employment practice and the
Management of Health and Safety at Work
Regulation (1999) requires the assessment of
risk of the job by employers.
•This provides the basis from which a health
assessment can be made.
•When it is known what is required of the job,
what hazards the individual will be exposed
to, then criteria can be decided which
assessment of fitness to undertake.

20. Some Basic Definitions-Health, safety
and welfare
•Health: The protection of the bodies and minds
of people from illness resulting from the
materials, processes and procedures in the
workplace.
•Safety: The protection of people from the
physical injury.
The borderline between the two terms is ill defined
and the two terms are normally used together to
indicate concerns for the physical and mental
well-being of the individual at the place of work

21. Health, safety and welfare
•Welfare: The provision of facilities to maintain
the health and well-being of individuals at the
work-place.
•These include: washing and sanitation
arrangements, eating and restrooms,
provision of drinking water, heating and
lighting and first aid arrangements.

22. Occupational Health and occupational
or work-related ill health
•occupational or work-related ill health:
Is concerned with all illness or physical and
mental disorders that are either caused or
triggered by workplace activities.
Those activities could be of the individual or of
others in the workplace.
The time interval between the exposure and the
onset of illness could be short, such as asthma
attacks, or long such as deafness or cancer .

23. Occupational Health and occupational
or work-related ill health
•Occupational Health:
is the promotion and maintenance of the
highest degree of physical, mental and social
well-being of workers in all occupations by
preventing departures from health, controlling
risks and the adaptation of work to people,
and people to their jobs.
(ILO / WHO 1950.

24. Health surveillance and health checks
•Health Surveillance is a process involving a range
of strategies and methods to systematically
detect and assess the early signs of adverse
effects on the health of workers exposed to
certain health hazards and subsequently acting
on the results.
•In simple terms, Health Surveillance means
watching out for early signs of work-related ill
health in employees exposed to certain health
risks.

25. Health surveillance-cont.
•Health surveillance is undertaken by health
specialist and supervised by a medical
practitioner.
•The results should be recorded and
documented.