Occupational Health and

Safety at work
Introduction
Objectives of this Section

To define the basic terminology of the

subject area.
To outline the reasons for a safe and
healthy workplace.
To show the accident trends in the EU
industry as a whole and in Spanish
industry in particular.
The aims of occupational health and safety
worldwide (ILO and WHO definition, adopted in
1995, www.ilo.org) are:

1. The maintenance and promotion of workers

health and working capacity;
2. The improvement of working environment
and work, to become conducive to safety and
health;
3. The development of work organization and
working cultures in a direction which
supports health and safety at work.
Basic Terminology of the Subject Area
Accident
undesired circumstances which
give rise to ill-health or injury,
damage to property, plant,
products or the environment;
production losses or increased
liabilities.
Incident
undesired circumstances and
near misses which could cause
accidents.
Ill health
Acute and chronic ill health
caused by physical, chemical or
biological agents as well as
adverse effects on mental health.
Hazard
The potential to cause harm.
Harm including ill health and
injury, damage to property, plant,
products or the environment,
production losses or increased
liabilities.
Risk
means the likelihood that a
specified undesired event will
occur due to the realisation of a
hazard by, or during work activities
or by the products and services
created by work activities.
The relationship between these concepts is shown in
the following diagram

Hazards/Danger
Observable or predicted from knowledge

Risk
Not directly observable - probability of harm to system elements
being realised from exposure to hazards and danger.

Harm
Damage to system elements - long or short term

Accidents

InjuriesIll-Health Damage
Safety
Safety may be
considered at the control
of all the above elements
but a more functional
definition is given by Bird
& Germain (1985) which
is the control of
accidental loss.
The Size of the Problem:

The increasing size and complexity of industrial processes

creates increased scope for major disasters, leading to greatly
increased public concern about industrial safety. The last two
decades have seen a series of such disasters both world-wide).

It is estimated that each year there are 3 million fatalities resulting

from accidents or poisoning, the majority of which occur in under
developing countries. Occupational accidents, defined as those
accidents that occur at the place of work, are also of major
concern. Each year 180 000 people are killed as a result of
accidents at work, whilst 110 million are injured (Harms Ringdahl,
1992).
Data
According to data
collected in 1988 (Hoyos
& Zimolong, 1988), in the
USA a fatal accident
occurs every 6 minutes, a
fatal occupational injury
occurs every 46 minutes
and a work accident that
results in an injury occurs
every 17 seconds. In
1992, more then 86,000
people died in the US.
In the UK, the 1990
Labour Force Survey
stated that there were an
estimated 1.6 million
accidents at work where
750,000 people suffered
ill health caused or made
worse by working
conditions. In all 30
million working days were
lost in which 20 000
people were forced to
give up work.
What about Spain
Your first task,
Due next day.
Find out the latest data concerning:
2012

Death at work fatalities

Injuries
Ill diseases
Reasons for Preventing Accidents

First approach
 There are three main reasons for preventing accidents and
ill-health, these are moral/humane, cost and legislation.

Moral
No-body comes to work to get injured or to become ill.

No-one likes getting injured or seeing their colleagues or friends

injured in accidents.

Nothing is more important than the humane aspects of accidental

loss: injury, pain, sorrow, anguish, loss of body particles or
functions, occupational illness, disability and death.

An employee should not have to risk injury or death at work, nor

should others associated with the work environment.
Employers and employees have a moral responsibility to prevent
accidents and ill-health at work.
Costs
Whether or not people are hurt, accidents do
cost organisations money and the actual injury
or illness costs represent only a small part of the
total.
For every 1 of insured costs (i.e. the actual cost
of the injury or illness in terms of medical costs
or compensation costs) the uninsured (or
hidden costs) varied between 8 and 36.
This has been traditionally depicted as an
iceberg as the largest part of an iceberg is
hidden under the sea.
The costs Iceberg
Insurance Costs
Covering Injury, ill
1 health, damage

Uninsured Costs
8-36 Product and material
damage.
Plant & building damage
Tool & equipment damage.
Legal costs
Expenditure on emergency
supplies.
Clearing site
Production delays
Overtime working and
temporary labour
Investigation time.
Supervisors time diverted
Clerical effort.
Fines
Loss of
expertise/experience
Economic

Many Governments realize that poor occupational safety

and health performance results in cost to the State (e.g.
through social security payments to the incapacitated,
costs for medical treatment, and the loss of the
"employability" of the worker).
Employing organisations also sustain costs in the event
of an incident at work (such as legal fees, fines,
compensatory damages, investigation time, lost
production, lost goodwill from the workforce, from
customers and from the wider community).
Legislation
Organisations have a legal obligation to prevent
accidents and ill-health. Health and Safety
Legislation in the EU consists of a number of
Directives that are supported by subordinate
legislation in the form of State Regulations.
The principal Act in Spain is the Labour Risk
Prevention at Work Act, 1995. (Ley de
Prevencin de Riesgos Laborales)
To think about it!

Occupational safety and health

requirements may be reinforced in civil
law and/or criminal law;
It is accepted that without the extra
"encouragement" of potential regulatory
action or litigation, many organisations
would not act upon their implied moral
obligations.
Historic backrounds
 In the 16th century, a German-Swiss physician
Paracelsus studied and described occupational health
problems of miners and foundry and smelter workers.
Hes sometimes called Father of toxicology because of
his well-known wisdom: All things are poison, and
nothing is without poison; only the dose permits
something not to be poisonous. (www.toxipedia.org).
In other words, the amount of a substance a person is
exposed to is as important as the nature of the
substance. For example, small doses of aspirin can be
beneficial to a person, but at very high doses, this
common medicine can be deadly. In some individuals,
even at very low doses, aspirin may be deadly
(www.toxipedia.org).
 Bernardino Ramazzini (1633-1714), an XVIII Italian
physician, also called as Father of Occupational
Health, affected greatly the future of occupational health
and safety because he said that occupational diseases
should be studied in the work environment and not in
hospital wards. In his book called
De Morbis Artificum (Diseases of Workers), Padua,
1713, he described "asthma" in bakers, miners, farmers,
gilders, tinsmiths, glass-workers, tanners, millers, grain-
sifters, stonecutters, ragmen, runners, riders, porters,
farmers, and professors.
Ramazzini outlined health hazards of the dusts, fumes,
or gases that such workers inhaled. The bakers and
horse riders described by Ramazzini would today
probably be diagnosed as suffering from allergen-
induced asthma. The lung diseases suffered by most of
the other workers would now be classified as
"pneumoconiosis," a group of dust-related chronic
diseases.
Modern notions of safety developed only
in the 19th century as an outgrowth of the
Industrial Revolution, when a terrible toll of
factory accidents aroused humanitarian
concern. In the 19th century, the safety of
an employee was generally considered to
be his own responsibility.
The evolution of OHS provisions in 21st
century are the following (Abrams, H.K.
A short history of occupational health,
Journal of Public Health Policy 22 (1): 34
80):
1. Control over the work process
Hours and place of work,
workers right to know,
workers right to participate in
workers right to know,
workers right to participate in their safety
and health protection,
quality of medical safety and health
protection,
and quality of medical care
2. Definition and recognition

Definition and recognition of work--related

diseases and related diseases and their
prevention.
The view must be broad prevention.
3. Setting standards

Setting standards for health and safety.

The will of society to view work as a
means to fulfilment health as a result of
work, rather than its casualty.
4. Environment

Relationships of the industrial plant and

the surrounding community and between
workers and other people in the
community, in terms of the quality of life.
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