History of Occupational Health

Pathological conditions brought about by workplace conditions led to the development of a field of study called occupational health. The concept of occupational health as a support segment of manufacturing did not arise exclusively from the concern of the medical establishment. 

In the later decades of the nineteenth century, millions of people emigrated from Europe to the United States and settled in its large cities. Steel mills, machine tool industries, railroads, canals, farms, and municipal governments provided employment for the new unskilled laborers with low wages. Almost all lived in poverty, had limited access to clean water, sewer systems, schools, or medical treatment. Settlement houses were an attempt to reverse these unanswered needs. Jane Addams founded Hull House in Chicago 

1877 Massachusetts passes law requiring safeguards on hazardous machines and the Employer Liability Law is passed. 

1900 Frederick Taylor conducts first studies of efficiency in manufacturing. 

1911 Wisconsin passes the first effective worker s compensation law. 

---

Ineson, Antonia and Deborah Thom. 1985. T.N.T. Poisoning and the Employment of Women Workers in the First World War. In Paul WeindUng (ed.). The Social History of Occupational Health. London Croom Helm. 

Development history of occupational health Contribution of key historic figures... 

Weindling, Paul, ed. The Social History of Occupational Health. London Groom Helm, 1985. 

The American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH ) is a private, not-for-profit, nongovernmental organization headquartered in Cincinnati, OH. The ACGIH has played an important role in the area of occupational health and safety with a history in the field of over 60 years. 

Smaller nuclear accidents included the Hanford, California, americium incident in 1976. In an explosion, a laboratory worker was exposed to radiation that required years of treatment (Breitenstein 1991 Brown 1983). Posttraumatic stress symptoms did not develop. Protective characteristics of the person included being a male older than 40 years and having occupational experience, above average intelligence, no history of mental health problems, religious belief,... 

Reviewing the history of occupational safety and health conflicts in the United States is not like, say, surveying agrarian populism or the development of central banking. There are no more than a handful of historians who specialize in this area, and much of the relevant material emerges as a byproduct of other interests - labor movement history, public health, etc. Moreover, the studies that have been produced are, with few exceptions, narrative accounts of individual issues or episodes no one has yet attempted a general siunmary of this disjointed and widely scattered literature. It is not possible, then, to prove the existence of general patterns in the history of occupational safety. Nevertheless, anyone who reads a reasonably broad selection of works in this area cannot fail to identify two conunon themes. ... 

Each eye observes separately, and through parallax their joint perception fixes the object of vision in three dimensions. To conclude this chapter, I will attempt a theoretical parallax, using the different vantage points developed in the preceding pages to explain the multifaceted history of occupational safety and health. 

Eaves, D. (2014) Two Steps Forward, One Step Back-A Brief History of the Origins, Development and Implementation of Health and Safety Law in the United Kingdom, 1802-2014, History of Occupational Safety and Health [Online]. Available http //bit.ly/1nJPvjJ [25 September 2015]. 

Hollocher, T.C. Tate, M.E. Nicholas, D.J.D. (1981). Oxidation of ammonia by Nitrosomonas europaea definitive i 0-t racer evidence that hydroxylamine formation involves a monooxygenase. Journal of Biological chemistry, Vol.256, No.21, pp. 10834-10836 Huff, J. (2007). Benzene-induced cancers abridged history and occupational health impact. 

The history of occupational safety and health has been dominated by legislation. Governments have observed problems and have attempted to solve those problems through the enactment of laws. In this country, the regulations culminated with the passage of the Occupational Safety and Health Act in 1970. 

The Inspectorate s mobilization of resources therefore emphasized the importance of the objectives of prevention of non-compliance and the constitution of everyday compliance. This was especially the case for railway employment inspectors whose remit was, of coiurse, largely concerned with occupational health and safety. Accident investigation could take up substantial amounts of time especially if there had been a high profile accident involving the public. But this tended to be the concern of inspecting officers and was, as history would suggest, very much a public safety concern and not so much a matter of occupational health and safety. Overall therefore the Railway Inspectorate s objectives, as revealed in their mobUization of resources, were in line with the apparent legal objectives. 

A short history of occupational safety and health has been provided depicting its development over the years. This may help put things in perspective related to the evolution of occupational safety and health as we know it today. 

Important events in the history of occupational safety and health... 

Berman, Daniel. Why Work Kills A Brief History of Occupational Safety and Health in the United States. International Journal of Health Services 7 (1977) 63-87. 

In Febmary 1990 the Occupational Safety and Health Administration lU.S.) published a report llrat summarizes the history of cadmium regulation, studies of health problems, and risk calculations for cancer, kidney damage, and other disorders. This report represents a formal step toward implementation of stricter limits on cadmium exposure in the workplace. Some authorities admit that considerably more research is required. 

Inhalant abuse is a financial drain on society as well. Indian Health Services estimates a cost of 1.6 million to treat a young adult with a history of inhalant abuse and all its associated physical, mental, legal, occupational, and social problems. The Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) estimates that illegal drugs cost the U.S. economy 160 billion in the year 2000, an annual increase of 5.8% between 1998 and 2000. That estimate includes 14.8 billion in healthcare costs and 110.4 billion in lost productivity from drug-related illness, incarceration, and death. 

Finally, based on past experiences, many employees are likely to work at more than one chemical agent disposal facility. Therefore, an analysis of workplace monitoring and/or occupational health data for several sites may be necessary to assess histories of individual workers and identify systemwide trends. Cross-site data reviews and analyses could be greatly improved if contractors used standardized reporting formats, which would facilitate electronic access to data records from all sites. The committee recommends the adoption of standardized report formats and electronically accessible records for occupational health and related records. Detailed findings and recommendations are presented in Chapter 5. 

The history of contemporary genomic-based environmental health sciences is just beginning to be written (Shostak 2003b). On industrial hygiene and occupational disease research and politics, see, for example, Corn (1992), Sellers (1997), Gottlieb (1993), Rosner and Markowitz (1987), and Markowitz and Rosner (2002), On environmental theories and politics of cancer, see Epstein (1979) and Proctor (1995),... 

At no time in modern history has the general public been more conscious of health and environmental issues. Therefore, it is somewhat understandable that we have witnessed, in just a very few years, the enactment of more federal legislation in occupational and environmental health than has been legislated in the history of this country, or any other nation. However, this has been achieved during a period of general national unrest induced by many social, economic and political factors. 

The combination of the health-relevant time-window and the toxicokinetic properties of the agent of interest determine the optimal exposure assessment strategy. Dioxin, a contaminant of chlorophenoxy herbicides and fungicides, has a relatively long biological half-life, estimated at about seven years and is measurable in serum. Serum measurements of dioxin are therefore relatively stable, and simple first-order kinetics have been used to back-estimate serum dioxin levels on the basis of an occupational history. Such exposure data have been used quite successfully in epidemiological analyses of cohorts of pesticide producers (Hooiveld et al, 1998). 

---