Knowra Occupational safety and health Occupational safety and health Occupational safety and health is the discipline and practice of preventing work-related injuries and illnesses by identifying, assessing, and controlling workplace hazards.
Hazard identification : The systematic recognition of conditions, substances, or activities that could cause harm. It finds workplace dangers before their consequences occur.
Ergonomics : The study and design of work to fit human capabilities and limitations. It reduces musculoskeletal strain by changing tasks, tools, and workstations.
Industrial Revolution : The period of major economic and technological change driven by mechanized production, beginning in Britain in the eighteenth century. Factory growth and dangerous machinery made workplace injury a public concern.
Public health : The organized effort to protect and improve the health of populations through collective action. It provides the broader population-health framework that includes workplace prevention.
Risk assessment : The process of estimating the likelihood and severity of harm from a hazard. It helps prioritize which workplace hazards need the fastest or strongest response.
Occupational epidemiology : The study of how workplace exposures affect the health of worker populations. It detects exposure-related patterns that individual incident reports can miss.
Factory Acts : A series of British laws regulating labor conditions in factories, beginning in the early nineteenth century. They established early legal limits on hazardous factory work and working conditions.
Environmental health : The field concerned with how environmental conditions affect human health. Its scope includes community exposures, while occupational health focuses on work-related risks.
Hierarchy of hazard controls : A ranked framework for reducing exposure through elimination, substitution, engineering, administration, and personal protective equipment. It favors controls that remove or isolate hazards over those relying on worker behavior.
Personal protective equipment : Equipment worn to reduce exposure to hazards when other controls do not fully protect workers. It is a final layer of protection when hazards remain after stronger controls.
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