Mamshungulii
Senior Member
- May 3, 2023
- 171
- 85
Occupational health relates to the impact health has on work and work has on health. Its objective is to prevent or reduce occupational health diseases developing such as asthma, hand-arm vibration and noise induced hearing loss. Sometimes the employee brings these conditions into work and sometimes they can be made worse or contributed to by the working environment. In all cases, the employer has a responsibility to manage occupational health issues and often will use the services of an occupational health provider to assist them. Clearly as staff are a key business asset and essential to good productivity and profitability, they need protecting.
Staff can be put at risk from workplace exposures in a number of ways: through excessive noise that might affect their hearing or extreme stress that might affect their ability to carry out their responsibilities. Excessive chemicals in the environment is another potential hazard if absorbed through the skin or breathed in. These dangers can lead to conditions such as respiratory disease, eye and skin irritation, muscle and nerve damage and even cancer.
The role of an occupational health team is to keep staff in the best of health – physically and mentally. In addition, it will do the appropriate risk assessments to lessen the chances of ill health in the workplace. If any risks remain, control measures will need to be put in place, part of which may be an occupational health surveillance programme.
An occupational health provider should be selected by the employer on the basis of being able to work with their risk assessment, work with the staff identified as being at risk and being able to set a programme and make appointments with those at risk before getting back to the employer with a comprehensive health action plan.
The WHO created a global strategy for occupational health in 1994 which called for all countries to show a “progressive development of occupational health services with the ultimate objective of covering all workers with such services irrespective of the sector of economy, size of company, occupation, mode of employment, or nature of self-employment.”
It adds, individuals spends one-third of their adult life in hazardous working environments and that approximately 120 million occupational accidents with 200,000 fatalities are estimated to occur annually. Furthermore the costs involved in theses health hazards amount to several per cent of some countries GDP. However, just 5-10% of workers in developing countries and 20-50% of workers in industrialised countries have access to occupational health services. The need is particularly critical in developing and newly industrialised countries where around eight out of ten of the world’s workers live.
In the world, there are numerous challenges facing occupational health provision around the world today. These appear to be linked with new information technology and automation, new chemical substances, health hazards associated with new biotechnologies, an ageing working population plus the special problems of groups such as the chronically ill, the handicapped, migrants and the unemployed.
Example in United States, issues affecting workers cut across several industry sectors. In an article in the US journal Occupational Medicine, John Howard of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health pointed out some of the issues that needed addressing. Firstly the development of ‘fracking’, the process to increase the energy output in the US, has brought with it new risks to the workforce involved in drilling and other activities in extracting oil and gas up to the point of shipment.
Meanwhile, job automation and robotics, where jobs formerly done by human workers are now done by machines, continues to disrupt the labour market in a number of key sectors. Robotic workers are also working alongside human workers and there have already been headlines about workers injured or killed by robots mostly not reported.
Occupational safety and health professionals will need to take a proactive approach, to the risk profile of occupational robotics.
In their paper ‘Creating a Future for Occupational Health’, academics from the University of Washington suggested that changes in the workplace and the resulting job insecurity change the nature of risk to a large fraction of the workforce. The paper states: “Workforce demographics are changing, and economic disparities among working groups are growing. Globalization exacerbates the 'race to the bottom' for cheap labour, poor regulatory oversight, and limited labour rights. Largely, as a result of these phenomena, the historical distinction between work and non-work exposures has become largely artificial and less useful in understanding risks and developing effective public health intervention models.”
It added that additional changes related to climate change, governmental and regulatory limitations and inadequate surveillance systems can challenge and frustrate occupational health progress while new biomedical and information technologies expand the opportunities for understanding and intervening to improve worker health.
The University of Washington paper concluded that occupational health training, professional practice, and research should evolve towards “a more holistic, public health-oriented model of worker health. This will require engagement with a wide network of stakeholders. Research and training portfolios need to be broadened to better align with the current realities of work and health and to prepare practitioners for the changing array of occupational health challenges.”
The WHO said that with the rapid changes in modern working life such as the demands of learning new skills, adapting to new types of work, the pressures of higher productivity, work quality and time pressure, there are growing psychological and stress issues among the workforce. More attention and resources should be given to these matters within occupational health, which can ultimately play an important role in ensuring that productivity, quality, motivation and work satisfaction are maintained at a high level.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Society in general should invest more in occupational safety and health rights including diagnosis and notifications of occupational diseases and accidents.
The role of government in this will be crucial in order to set the standards for controlling risks at work and ensuring that compliance with such standards are adhered to. The principal players at the workplace level though are the employers and workers who should work closely together to ensure health and safety at work.
Staff can be put at risk from workplace exposures in a number of ways: through excessive noise that might affect their hearing or extreme stress that might affect their ability to carry out their responsibilities. Excessive chemicals in the environment is another potential hazard if absorbed through the skin or breathed in. These dangers can lead to conditions such as respiratory disease, eye and skin irritation, muscle and nerve damage and even cancer.
The role of an occupational health team is to keep staff in the best of health – physically and mentally. In addition, it will do the appropriate risk assessments to lessen the chances of ill health in the workplace. If any risks remain, control measures will need to be put in place, part of which may be an occupational health surveillance programme.
An occupational health provider should be selected by the employer on the basis of being able to work with their risk assessment, work with the staff identified as being at risk and being able to set a programme and make appointments with those at risk before getting back to the employer with a comprehensive health action plan.
The WHO created a global strategy for occupational health in 1994 which called for all countries to show a “progressive development of occupational health services with the ultimate objective of covering all workers with such services irrespective of the sector of economy, size of company, occupation, mode of employment, or nature of self-employment.”
It adds, individuals spends one-third of their adult life in hazardous working environments and that approximately 120 million occupational accidents with 200,000 fatalities are estimated to occur annually. Furthermore the costs involved in theses health hazards amount to several per cent of some countries GDP. However, just 5-10% of workers in developing countries and 20-50% of workers in industrialised countries have access to occupational health services. The need is particularly critical in developing and newly industrialised countries where around eight out of ten of the world’s workers live.
In the world, there are numerous challenges facing occupational health provision around the world today. These appear to be linked with new information technology and automation, new chemical substances, health hazards associated with new biotechnologies, an ageing working population plus the special problems of groups such as the chronically ill, the handicapped, migrants and the unemployed.
Example in United States, issues affecting workers cut across several industry sectors. In an article in the US journal Occupational Medicine, John Howard of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health pointed out some of the issues that needed addressing. Firstly the development of ‘fracking’, the process to increase the energy output in the US, has brought with it new risks to the workforce involved in drilling and other activities in extracting oil and gas up to the point of shipment.
Meanwhile, job automation and robotics, where jobs formerly done by human workers are now done by machines, continues to disrupt the labour market in a number of key sectors. Robotic workers are also working alongside human workers and there have already been headlines about workers injured or killed by robots mostly not reported.
Occupational safety and health professionals will need to take a proactive approach, to the risk profile of occupational robotics.
In their paper ‘Creating a Future for Occupational Health’, academics from the University of Washington suggested that changes in the workplace and the resulting job insecurity change the nature of risk to a large fraction of the workforce. The paper states: “Workforce demographics are changing, and economic disparities among working groups are growing. Globalization exacerbates the 'race to the bottom' for cheap labour, poor regulatory oversight, and limited labour rights. Largely, as a result of these phenomena, the historical distinction between work and non-work exposures has become largely artificial and less useful in understanding risks and developing effective public health intervention models.”
It added that additional changes related to climate change, governmental and regulatory limitations and inadequate surveillance systems can challenge and frustrate occupational health progress while new biomedical and information technologies expand the opportunities for understanding and intervening to improve worker health.
The University of Washington paper concluded that occupational health training, professional practice, and research should evolve towards “a more holistic, public health-oriented model of worker health. This will require engagement with a wide network of stakeholders. Research and training portfolios need to be broadened to better align with the current realities of work and health and to prepare practitioners for the changing array of occupational health challenges.”
The WHO said that with the rapid changes in modern working life such as the demands of learning new skills, adapting to new types of work, the pressures of higher productivity, work quality and time pressure, there are growing psychological and stress issues among the workforce. More attention and resources should be given to these matters within occupational health, which can ultimately play an important role in ensuring that productivity, quality, motivation and work satisfaction are maintained at a high level.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Society in general should invest more in occupational safety and health rights including diagnosis and notifications of occupational diseases and accidents.
The role of government in this will be crucial in order to set the standards for controlling risks at work and ensuring that compliance with such standards are adhered to. The principal players at the workplace level though are the employers and workers who should work closely together to ensure health and safety at work.
