OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY

ORGANIZATIONS

• The Occupational Safety & Health Administration

(OSHA) is the government’s administrative arm for
the Occupational Safety & Health Act.
• OSHA sets/revokes safety & health standards,
conducts inspections, investigates problems…
– Issues citations & assesses penalties.
– Petitions courts to take action against unsafe employers.
– Provides safety training & injury prevention consultation.
– Maintains a database of health and safety statistics.
 OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH
TODAY

Today, there is widespread understanding of the

importance of providing a safe & healthy
workplace.
– Learn more by sharing knowledge about workplace health
problems, particularly those caused by toxic substances.
– Provide a greater level of expertise in evaluating health and
safety problems.
– Provide a broad database that can be used to compare health
and safety problems experienced by different companies in the
same industry.
– Encourage accident prevention.
– Make employee health and safety a high priority.
 Whose Responsibility?
• Employer: Duty of Care – to provide and maintain
so far as is practicable for employees a working
environment; Set by legislation; and Corporate
social responsibility.
• Employees: Set by legislation; Regulations set by
Employer; and Individual.
• Government – Providing legislation which places
compulsion on the parties; create governing
bodies to oversee the process of OHS and ensure
that responsibilities are being taken seriously.
General Duty Clause

Employers have
responsibility to furnish a
workplace free from
recognized hazards that are
causing or are likely to
cause death or serious
physical harm
 Duties under OSHA(Continued)

Employers (Continued)
• To ensure that there is training, supervision
and information about health and safety
• To ensure that the workplace itself is
maintained adequately and that there are safe
ways to get into and out of the buildings
• To ensure that welfare provisions are adequate
 Duties under OSHA

Employers
• To ensure the health, safety and welfare of
employees
• To ensure that the workplace itself is safe; that
the equipment has been maintained correctly
and work is safely organised
• To ensure that accidents do not occur because
of incorrect handling, storage or transportation
 Duties under OSHA (Continued)

Employees
• To take responsibility for their own health and
safety, and for any health and safety problems
which might be caused to colleagues
• Not to recklessly interfere with or misuse any
machinery, equipment or processes
• To co-operate with employers about health and
safety initiatives
Under OSHA, When an Employee Can
Legally Refuse to Work

• Reasonably fears death, disease

or serious physical harm
• Harm is imminent
• Too little time to file complaint
and get problem corrected
• Employer has been notified of
condition but has not
taken action
 TODAY SAFETY AND HEALTH TEAMS

• The issues that concern modern safety and health

managers include:
– Stress; explosives; laws, standards, and codes.
– Radiation; AIDS; product safety and liability.
– Ergonomics; ethics; automation; workers’ compensation.
– An ever-changing multitude of other issues.
 Others who are involved in health
and safety

• Safety representatives
• Safety officer or safety adviser
• Competent persons
• Safety committees
 Safety committees

• Study figures and trends for accidents and

notifiable diseases
• Examine safety audit reports
• Consider reports and factual information
provided by inspectors
• Assist in development of safety rules and safe
systems of work
 Safety committees (Continued)

• Monitor the effectiveness of safety training in

the workplace
• Monitor the effectiveness of the safety and
health communication in the workplace
• Encourage publicity for health and safety
programmes in the workplace
• Provide a link with the appropriate
inspectorates
 SAFETY AND HEALTH TEAMS
Typical positions comprising a safety & health team.

It is unreasonable to expect one person

to be an expert in all the complex & diverse
issues faced in the modern workplace.
 SAFETY AND HEALTH MANAGER
• Companies committed to a safe & healthy
workplace employ a safety & health manager at an
appropriate level in the corporate hierarchy.
– The manager’s position in the hierarchy is an indication
of the company’s commitment and priorities.
Safety & health manager
duties range include
hazard analysis, accident
reporting,
standards/compliance,
record keeping, training,
emergency planning, etc.
 Role in the Company Hierarchy
• The safety & health manager’s role in a company
depends in part on whether his/her safety & health
duties are full time or are in addition to other duties.
– In some companies, safety & health managers may have
other duties, like a production or personnel manager.

• Does the safety and health manager have line or

staff authority?
– Line authority means the safety & health manager has
authority over and supervises certain employees.
– Staff authority means safety & health manager is
responsible for a certain function, but has no line
authority over others involved with that function.
 Role in the Company Hierarchy
• Staff positions operate like internal consultants—they may
recommend, suggest & promote—but
do not have the authority to order or mandate.
– Typically the case with safety &health managers.
• Managers with line authority over safety & health
personnel typically have a staff relationship with other
functional managers.
– Personnel, production, or purchasing.
• A successful safety & health manager is resourceful,
clever, astute in corporate politics, good at building
relationships, persuasive, adept at trading favors,
credible, talented in development & use of influence.
 Problems Safety and Health Managers
Face
• Lack of Commitment - top management may see
safety & health program as a necessary evil.
– A collection of government regulations that interfere
with profits.
• Safety & health professionals should be prepared
to confront a less than wholehearted commitment
in some companies.
 Education/Training for Safety & Health
Managers
• Advances have made the safety & health
professional job more complex than ever before.
– Increasing the importance of education & training.
• The ideal formula for safety & health professionals
is formal education prior to entering the profession.
– Supplemented by lifelong in-service training.
• Formal education provides the foundation of
knowledge needed to enter the profession.
– The challenge is keeping up as laws, standards, and
overall body of knowledge grow, change, and evolve.
• New safety & health managers should join the
appropriate professional organizations.
 ENGINEERS AND SAFETY

• Engineers can make a contributions to safety, or

cause, inadvertently or by incompetence,
accidents that result in serious injury & property
damage.
– Opportunity for good & bad comes during design.
• Engineers involved in design are usually in the
aerospace, electrical, mechanical & nuclear fields.
 ENGINEERS AND SAFETY
• Safety & health professionals should be familiar with
the design process to more fully understand the role
of engineers concerning workplace safety.
– Not all engineers are design engineers.
 Safety Engineer
• The title safety engineer is often a misnomer,
implying the person in the position is a degreed
engineer with formal education and/or special
training in workplace safety.
• The title is typically given to the person with overall
responsibility for the company’s safety program.
– Or a member of the company’s safety team.
• Persons with bachelor’s or associate degrees in
areas other than engineering should be
encouraged to seek such positions.
– Industrial technology, engineering & manufacturing,
industrial management & industrial safety technology.
 Safety Engineer
• There are signs that engineering schools are
becoming more sensitive to safety & health issues.
– Graduate degrees in such areas as nuclear physics &
nuclear engineering now often require safety courses.
– The federal government sponsors postgrad safety
studies.
– Four states now have registration of professional
engineers in a Safety Engineer discipline.
 Industrial Engineers and Safety
• Industrial engineers are the most likely candidates
from among the various engineering disciplines to
work as safety engineers.
– Knowledge of industrial systems can make them
valuable members of a design team
– They can also contribute as a member of a company’s
safety team by helping design job & plant layouts for
efficiency & safety.
• Industrial engineers are more likely to work as
safety engineers than those from other disciplines.
– They are not much more likely to have safety courses
as a required part of their program of study.
 Environmental Engineers and Safety
• Environmental engineering is a relatively new
discipline, and may be described as follows:
– A field in which the application of engineering & scientific
principles is used to protect and preserve human health
and the well-being of the environment.

Course work environmental

engineers take is particularly
relevant since all of it relates
directly or indirectly to health.
 Chemical Engineers and Safety
• Modern chemical engineers, also called process
engineers, are concerned with physical/chemical
changes of matter to economically produce a
product or result that is useful to mankind.
– Versatile in a chemical, petroleum, aerospace, nuclear,
materials, microelectronics, sanitation, food processing,
and computer technology.
• Increasingly, industrial companies are seeking
chemical engineers to fill the industrial hygiene
role on the safety and health team.
– Their formal education makes people in this discipline
well equipped to serve in this capacity.
 INDUSTRIAL HYGIENIST
• An industrial hygienist is a person degreed in
engineering, chemistry, physics, medicine, or
related sciences.
– Who, by virtue of special studies and training, has
acquired competence in industrial hygiene.
• Industrial hygienists are primarily concerned about
the following types of hazards:
– Solvents, particulates, toxic substances.
– Dermatoses, ergonomics, noise, temperature.
– Radiation, biological substances.
– Ventilation, gas, and vapors.
 INDUSTRIAL HYGIENIST
• Special studies/training must have been sufficient
to provide the ability to…
– Recognize environmental factors and to understand
their effect on humans and their well-being.
– Evaluate the magnitude of these stresses in terms of
ability to impair human health and well-being.
– Prescribe methods to eliminate, control, or reduce such
stresses when necessary to alleviate their effects.
• In a safety and health team, the industrial hygienist
typically reports to the safety and health manager.
 HEALTH PHYSICIST
• Health physicists are concerned primarily with
radiation in the workplace.
– Monitoring radiation inside and outside the facility,
– Measuring the radioactivity levels of biological samples,
– Developing the radiation components of the company’s
emergency action plan.
– Supervising the decontamination of workers and the
workplace when necessary.
• Nuclear engineering & nuclear physics are the most
widely pursued fields of study for health physicists.
– Professionals in this field may be certified by the American
Board of Health Physics (ABHP).
 OCCUPATIONAL PHYSICIAN

• Occupational physicians are fully degreed and

licensed medical doctors, and must have
completed postgraduate work in many areas,
including:
– Biostatistics, epidemiology, industrial toxicology.
– Work physiology, principles of occupational safety.
– Radiation (ionizing and nonionizing), biological
monitoring.
– Ergonomics, noise/hearing conservation.
– Fundamentals of industrial hygiene, occupational aspects
of dermatology.
– Record and data collection, governmental regulations.
– General environmental health (air, water, ground
 OCCUPATIONAL PHYSICIAN
• The OP should be the leader of other medical
personnel.
– There should be a written medical program available
to all management and employees.
– Periodic tours of all facilities are necessary for an
understanding of possible work-related injuries.
• The OP should understand the workplace and the
chemicals used & produced.
– Should be familiar with OSHA & NIOSH health mandates.
 OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH NURSE
• Occupational health nursing is application of
nursing principles in conserving health of workers.
– Requires special skills and knowledge in the areas of
health education and counseling, environmental health,
rehabilitation, and human relations.
 OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH NURSE

• AAOHN defines occupational nurse objectives:

– To adapt the nursing program to meet the specific
needs of the individual company.
– To provide competent nursing care for all employees, or
seek competent medical direction if unavailable on-site.
– To establish & maintain an adequate system of records.
– To plan, prepare, promote, present, and broker
educational activities for employees.
– To establish and maintain positive working relationships
with all departments within the company.
– To maintain positive working relationships with all
components of the local health care community.
– Monitor, evaluate & adjust the nursing program.
 RISK MANAGER
• Risk management consists of activities &
strategies an organization can use to protect itself
from situations, circumstances, or events that may
undermine its security.
– Organizations are at risk every time they open their
doors for business.
• Risk managers work closely with safety & health
personnel to reduce the risk of accidents and
injuries on the job.
– They also work closely with insurance companies to
achieve the most effective transference possible.
 PROFESSIONAL CERTIFICATION

• Professional certification is an excellent way to

establish credentials in the safety, health, and
environmental profession.
– Certified Safety Professional (CSP)
– Certified Industrial Hygienist (CIE)
– Certified Professional Ergonomist (CPE)
– Certified Occupational Health Nurse (COHN)
EMERGING ROLE OF SAFETY PROFESSIONALS

• As the world gets flatter, as organizations get

leaner, and as global competition becomes more
intense, the role of safety professionals is
changing.
• The core duty of safety professionals has not
changed, but the skills they will need to fulfill this
duty are changing.
– Expectations of a safe & healthy workplace are higher
than ever, and society is more litigious than ever.
• Being an expert in a specific safety & health-
related discipline—still necessary—is no longer
sufficient.