Occupational incidence

The MORT technique has received domestic and international recognition, and has been applied to a wide range of projects from investigation of occupational incidents to hazards identification. It is supported by detailed documentation, and has been subjected to continued development efforts since it was originally introduced. Today there are several predefined trees available from public and proprietary sources that are based, at least in part, upon tbe MORT tool. 

Occupational Incident— An incident involving injury to workers. 

Process-Related Incident— An incident with impact, or potential impact, on process, equipment, people, and the environment. The incident could he internal or external to the process. An occupational incident can result from a process related incident. 

It is a necessity that the advice given by safety professionals be based on an understanding of the reality of causal factors and actually serves to attain a state for which the risks are judged to be acceptable. I will develop a systemic causation model for hazards-related occupational incidents that represents the thoughts set forth in this chapter. 

Prevent the human suffering that results from occupational incidents Identify causal factors (basic, primary, immediate, secondary, contributing, ancillary)... 

In recognition of the need to further our knowledge of hazards-related incident causation, a chapter offers A Systemic Causation Model for Hazards Related Occupational Incidents. ... 

Indemnity paid to an employee for disability sustained in an occupational incident. Competent Person... 

A decrease in occupational incidents that result in injury, illness, or damage to property is enough reason to develop and implement a written safety and health program. 

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Occupation Injury and Illness Classification Manual provides a much more detailed breakout of the type data that is most useful in analysis of occupational incidents. The four major areas of data that the BLS believes are important to collect during review or investigation of occupational safety and health incidents are Nature, Part of Body Affected, Source, and Event or Exposure. The following provide more detailed information with regard to the content of these data sources ... 

Unsafe acts of workers are the principal causal factors for occupational incidents. 

A SYSTEMIC CAUSATION MODEL FOR HAZARDS-RELATED OCCUPATIONAL INCIDENTS... 

Prevent the human suffering that results from occupational incidents. 

Written safety and health programs have a real place in modem safety and health practices not to mention the potential benefits. If a decrease in occupational incidents that result in injury, illness, or damage to property is not reason enough to develop and implement a written safety and health program, the other benefits from having a formal safety and health program seem well worth the investment of time and resources. Some of these are... 

Injury and occupational illness severity. Those jobs that have involved serious incidents. There may be a basic problem in the work environment or in the job performance itself... 

When the incidence of occupational diseases was compared with the frequency of OEL violations in Finland, a rather good correlation was observed. This indicates that these OELs are reasonably well defined. This is also natural because they are based on long-term exposure history of a large number of people. However, the OELs for many chemicals are still only educated guesses, and numerous and often large changes have been made when the OEL lists have been revised. In addition, most chemicals still have no OEL. Only about 2000 chemicals have an OEL in some country. ... 

The continuous recirculation and spraying results in dirty water building up in the sump. In order to reduce the incidence of infection to occupants and fouling of the nozzle, water treatment with biocides and softening of the water supply are required. The sump is complete with strainers in a position which allows easy access for cleaning. See Fig. 9.15. 

The successes of the traditional approach have largely been obtained in the area of occupational safety, where statistical evidence is readily available concerning the incidence of injuries to individuals in areas such as tripping and falling accidents. Such accidents are amenable to behavior modification approaches because the behaviors that give rise to the accident are under the direct control of the individual and are easily predictable. In addition, the nature of the hazard is also usually predictable and hence the behavior required to avoid accidents can be specified explicitly. For example, entry to enclosed spaces, breaking-open process lines, and lifting heavy objects are known to be potentially hazardous activities for which safe methods of work... 

Leplat, J. (1982). Accidents and Incidents in Production Methods of Analysis. Journal of Occupational Accidents 4(2-4), 299-310. 

In the example discussed in Section 4.2, the company found that by integrating its accident/incident investigations across its process safety and occupational safety activities, it has saved one year of duplicate time to date by avoiding conflicting models and coordinating training efforts. This represents a 50 percent reduction in effort. 

A pressing challenge for epidemiologists interested in occupational health is to derive an accurate picture of disease frequency. This challenge is met by two broad types of measurement prevalence and incidence. These arc briefly described below. 

In a case-control study of pesticide factory workers in Brazil exposed to methyl parathion and formulating solvents, the incidence of chromosomal aberrations in lymphocytes was investigated (De Cassia Stocco et al. 1982). Though dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) was coformulated with methyl parathion, blood DDT levels in the methyl parathion-examined workers and "nonexposed" workers were not significantly different. These workers were presumably exposed to methyl parathion via both inhalation and dermal routes however, a dose level was not reported. The exposed workers showed blood cholinesterase depressions between 50 and 75%. However, the baseline blood cholinesterase levels in nonexposed workers were not reported. No increases in the percentage of lymphocytes with chromosome breaks were found in 15 of these workers who were exposed to methyl parathion from 1 week to up to 7 years as compared with controls. The controls consisted of 13 men who had not been occupationally exposed to any chemical and were of comparable age and socioeconomic level. This study is limited because of concomitant exposure to formulating solvents, the recent history of exposure for the workers was not reported, the selection of the control group was not described adequately, and the sample size was limited. 

The Chemical Substances Threshold Limit Values Committee classifies certain substances found in the occupational environment as either confirmed or suspected human carcinogens. The present listing of substances that have been identified as carcinogens takes two forms those for which a TLV has b n assigned and those for which environmental and exposure conditions have not been sufficiently defined to assign a TLV. Where a TLV has been assigned, it does not necessarily imply the existence of a biological threshold however, if exposures are controlled to this level, we would not expect to see a measurable increase in cancer incidence or mortality. 

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