DESIGN FOR OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY:INTERDISCIPLINARY NATURE OF OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH

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INTERDISCIPLINARY NATURE OF OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH

Occupational health and safety has its roots in several disciplines, including such diverse fields as engineering, toxicology, epidemiology, medicine, sociology, psychology, and economics. Essentially, occupational health and safety is a multidisciplinary endeavor requiring knowledge from diverse sources to deal with the interacting factors of people, technology, the work environment, and the organization of work activities. Any successful approach for the prevention of injuries and health disorders must recognize the need to deal with these diverse factors using the best available tools from various disciplines and to organize a systematic and balanced effort. Large companies have many resources that can be called upon, but small companies do not have such resources and may need to contact local, state, and federal agencies for information, advice, and consultation.

A PUBLIC HEALTH MODEL FOR OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH PROTECTION

Figure 1 illustrates a general public health approach for improving the safety and health of the workforce (HHS 1989). It begins with surveillance. We have to know what the hazards are and their safety and health consequences before we can establish priorities on where to apply our limited resources and develop intervention strategies. At the national level, there are statistics on occupational

Design for Occupational Health and Safety-0084

injuries and illnesses from various sources including the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Na- tional Center for Health Statistics, and National Safety Council. These statistics provide an indication of the most hazardous jobs and industries. In addition, each state has workers’ compensation statistics that can provide information about local conditions. This same kind of surveillance can be done by each company at the plant level to identify hazardous jobs and operations. Plant level exposure, hazard, and injury / illness records can be examined periodically to establish trends and determine plant hot spots that need immediate attention.

The second level of the model defines specific services and protection measures to prevent the occurrence of hazards and injuries / illnesses. It also includes services for quick and effective treatment if injury or illness should occur. For example, the safety staff keep track of the state and federal requirements regarding workplace exposure standards. The safety staff then establishes a process for enforcing the standards through inspections and correction activities. Additional plant safety and health programs deal with employee safety and health training (Cohen and Colligan 1998), emergency medical treatment facilities, and arrangements with local clinics. The basic thrust of these multifaceted approaches is to reduce or eliminate adverse workplace exposures and their consequences and provide effective treatment when injuries and illnesses occur.

At the next level of the model is the need to heighten the awareness of the professionals in the workplace who have to make the decisions that affect safety, such as the manufacturing engineers, accountants, operations managers, and supervisors. In addition, workers need to be informed so that they know about the risks and consequences of occupational exposures. There is substantial workplace experience to attest that managers and employees do not always agree on the hazardous nature of workplace exposures. It is vital that those persons who can have a direct impact on plant exposures, such as managers and employees, have the necessary information in an easily understandable and useful form to be able to make informed choices that can lead to reductions in adverse exposures. Providing the appropriate information is the first basic step for good decision making. However, it does not ensure good decisions. Knowledgeable and trained professionals are also needed to provide proper advice on how to interpret and use the information.

The next stage in the model is the reduction of risk by having known adverse agents of injury or illness controlled or removed. The reduction in risk leads to the final stage, which is an improve- ment in health and safety status of the workforce. This general model leads to a more specific approach that can be applied at specific workplaces.

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