Hazards workplaces

R. A. Wadden and P. A. Scheff, Engineering Design for the Control of Workplace Hazards, McGraw-HiU Book Co. Inc., New York, 1987. 

The motivation for ensuring good indoor air quality should be obvious. The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 emphasizes the need for standards to protect the health and safety of workers. To fulfill this need, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has developed a strategy for disseminating information that assists employers to protect their workers from workplace hazards. This strategy includes the development of Special NIOSH Hazard Reviews, which support and complement the major standards development and hazard documentation activities of the Institute. These documents deal with... 

Smagorinsky model, 11 779 Small and medium size establishments (SMEs), workplace hazards in,... 

Workplace Environmental Exposure Level (WEEL) guides, 21 837 Workplace hazards list, 14 2041 Workplace, solvent concentration in, 23 114-115... 

OSHA develops and enforces standards to protect employees from workplace hazards. In the aftermath of the reactive incident that caused the Bhopal tragedy,3 4 5 OSHA was concerned about the possibility of a catastrophe at chemical plants in the United States. Its own investigations in the mid-1980s indicated a need to look beyond existing standards. 

The American Textile Industry Involvement with cotton dust as a workplace hazard began over ten years ago with Industry studies to determine whether the Industry had such an Illness problem. Then followed major dust removal and ventlllatlon efforts. The Industry developed a work practices and medical surveillance program which was presented to OSHA. 

DEG MAK. This is the standard established by the German Research Society, designated as workplace hazard potentials. The MAK values are revised annually. 

Selection bias (i.e., unobserved heterogeneity) exists when case and control groups differ in unobservable ways because participants were assembled after the occurrence of the causal process rather than before. For example, because hazardous occupations generally employ healthier workers, the health of those workers before exposure fo workplace hazards is not the same as the health of a control group of workers in nonhazardous occupations. ... 

The concern over the workplace hazards of chemical substances has increased with the determination that some compounds are carcinogens or suspect carcinogens. Consequently, it has been recommended by NIOSH that several established standards be lowered (3). It is, therefore, very important to develop methods that can be readily adapted to lower standard levels without the need for additional costly and time-consuming research. 

A more recent OSHA development has been the availability of personnel from OSHA and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) for consultation to identify, evaluate, and correct workplace hazards (20). 

The goal of employee health monitoring is to ensure that measures to protect the employee from workplace hazards are effective by carrying out medical surveillance programs for the early detection of adverse health effects. The types of chemical or physical hazards encountered determine the nature of the medical surveillance or health monitoring programs. 

Occupational illnesses and injuries should be diagnosed and treated promptly. The occupational physician, who is familiar with workplace hazards, is uniquely qualified to recognize work-related conditions and should be able to arrange for prompt treatment and rehabilitation. 

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) conducts research on criteria for specific functions and occupations. NIOSH publishes numerous safety and health standards related to workplace hazards. There is an entire section of standards devoted to the safety of health care workers. Of particular interest are standards regarding blood-borne... 

The Hazardous Products Act. (R.S., 1985, c. H-3) This act prohibits advertising, sale, and import of hazardous products. It requires Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System (WHMIS) labels and Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) for chemicals. It also allows inspection of facilities for compliance. 

There are a number of requirements in the existing systems that relate to size, appearance, and placement of the labels. For example, the Canadian Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System (WHMIS) system requires a border around the label that distinguishes it from labels of other systems. 

Workers at factories, storage facilities, construction sites, and at small- and medium-sized enterprises are potentially exposed to industrial chemical hazards. The elements common to workplace hazard communications systems include labels, MSDS/SDS, and training. 

Historical Cohort Study When the need arises to study the health status of a group of individuals, there is often a large body of historical data that can be utilized. If sufficient information exists on individuals exposed in the past to a potential workplace hazard, then it may be possible to undertake a retrospective cohort study. The historical data will have been collected for reasons that have nothing to do with epidemiology. Nevertheless, the availability of personnel records, such as registers of new and former employees, payrolls, work rosters, and individuals career records, has enabled many epidemiological studies to be conducted, in particular, mortality studies. 

Cohort Definition and Follow-Up Period A variety of sources of information are used to identify workers exposed to a particular workplace hazard, to construct an occupational history, and to complete the collection of information necessary for tracing (see below). It is essential that the cohort be well defined and that criteria for eligibility are strictly followed. This requires that a clear statement be made about membership of the cohort so that it is easy to decide whether an employee is a member or not. It is also important that the follow-up period be carefully defined. For instance, it is readily apparent that the follow-up period should not start before exposure has occurred. Furthermore, it is uncommon for the health effect of interest to manifest itself immediately after exposure, and allowance for an appropriate biological induction (or latency) period may need to be made when interpreting the data. 

An alternative or additional approach is to establish a cohort of unexposed workers for comparison purposes. However, workers with very low exposures to the workplace hazard will often provide similar information. 

Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System (WHMIS) Website http //www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hecs-sesc/whmis/index.htm Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety, MSDS http //ccinfoweb.ccohs.ca/msds/search.html (payment req d )... 

Land Acidification potential Photochemical ozone creation potential Human toxicity Eco-toxicity Workplace hazards etc. Index metrics Eco-indicator 99 [37] GSK s FLASC score [38] BASF s eco-efficiency fingerprint [39]... 

Trainees go through typical shop to view and identify hazards. Review of workplace hazards, potential consequences, equipment use, and procedures to prevent and eliminate hazards. 

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