Industrial Hygiene Principles

Basic Occupational Safety and Health - Module 2: Principles of Industrial Hygiene

• Module focuses on the principles of industrial hygiene

Course Learning Outcome

• Intended to familiarize with emergency and exposure controls related to undesirable industrial hygiene.

Topic Learning Outcomes

• Recognizes, evaluates, and controls workplace environmental factors that cause sickness, ill-health, and affect well-being.

Definition of Industrial Hygiene

• Defined as the science and art of anticipating, recognizing, evaluating, and controlling environmental factors in the workplace.
• Aims to prevent sickness, impaired health, discomfort, and inefficiency among workers and the community.

Occupational Hazards

• Occur from chemical, physical, and biological agents, psychological stressors, and ergonomic/safety factors.
• Chemical agents in the form of gases, vapors, and particulate aerosols.
• Physical agents in the form of noise, ionizing/non-ionizing radiation, heat, and cold stress.
• Biological agents including infectious agents and allergens.

Industrial Hygiene Concepts

• Involves anticipation and recognition of potential hazards through knowledge of materials, processes, operations, and conditions.
• Scope of IH activities encompasses the entire lifecycle, the "cradle-to-grave" concept through waste disposal.

Evaluation

• Focuses on measuring exposure, determining frequency and duration, and comparing findings with regulatory, professional, and internal standards and judgement of all factors.

Control of Exposures

• Involves eliminating or reducing exposure to prevent occupational diseases though employing engineering, administrative, and personal protective equipment.

Exposure: Key definitions and concepts

• Occurs when a pollutant or mixture contacts the external boundary of the human body, such as skin, nose, lungs, GI tract.
• Requires both, the presence of a pollutant and contact with a person through that medium.
• Quantified by measuring the concentration of the contaminant and the duration of contact.

Risk Assessment

• Considereed an essential part of the industrial hygiene profession.
• Broadly defined as methodology to predicts the likelihood of unwanted events like explosions, injuries, natural catastrophes, diseases, and death.

Terminology

• Industrial Hygiene uses Application/Recognition, Evaluation, and Control, as compared to Environmental's Hazard Identification, Exposure/Toxicity Assessment, and Risk Management, respectively.
• Hazard Communication is termed Risk Communication in Environmental.

Exposure Control options

• Control options include elimination or reduction through technology changes, substitution with less hazardous materials
• Includes altering physical state or particle size of a substance, or using wet methods to reduce/eliminate hazards
• Can incorporate use of equipment to alter material handling with mechanical techniques.

Government Regulations for COVID-19 Pandemic

• Implemented through DTI and DOLE interim guidelines for workplace prevention and control to increase resilience and reduce transmission.
• Entry procedures, workplace practices, minimized contact rate, and infection risk reduction.

Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)

PPE Purpose

• Issued to protect employees against workplace hazards that cannot be eliminated or adequately reduced by other controls.
• Guided by DOLE OSH Standards Rule No. 1080 for Personal Protective Equipment.

DOLE Standards

• Ensures that personal protective equipment is of approved design and construction appropriate for anticipated exposure and work to be performed.
• Employers are responsible for ensuring the adequacy and proper maintenance of personal protective equipment.
• No one should be subjected to any hazardous environmental condition without protection.

Hazard Assessment

• It is performed at the start of new projects or maintenance operations.
• This assessment identifies potential hazards to the foot, head, eye, face, and hand.
• Hazards must be identified during the walkthrough.
• Type, risk level, potential injury severity should be noted for each hazard.
• Prioritize guards/engineering controls, then choose PPE based on protection required and provided.

Respiratory Protection

• Governed by DOLE OSH Standards Rule no. 1083.
• Primary measure is prevention of atmospheric contamination from dusts, fogs, fumes, mists, gases, smokes, sprays or vapors .
• Accomplished through engineering controls like enclosure.
• Includes confinement, general and local ventilation, substitution of less toxic materials, and combinations.

Respirators as a tool

• Utilized when effective engineering controls are not feasible, or while they are being implemented.

PPE Applications

• Applications for PPE include providing eye and face protection, head and foot protection, hand and arm protection, respiratory protection.
• also incorporates fall protection, hair protection and protection from electrical shocks.

Rule 1080 States That:

• Every employer is responsible for providing workers with protective equipment for eyes, face, hands, and feet, shields, and barriers.
• This shall be done whenever necessary due to the hazardous nature of process, environment, chemicals, or mechanical hazards.

ANSI Standards for Respiratory Protection

• American National Standards Practices for Respiratory Protection (ANSI z88.-21059) is adopted for proper selection, design, construction, testing, and use of respirators.
• Standard procedures must be created for respirator usage.
• Written procedures created for safe use of respirators in dangerous atmospheres.
• Workers in enclosed, toxic, or oxygen-deficient atmosphere shall have additional worker in nearby, unaffected area, with suitable rescue equipment to assist.

More on Respirators

• Persons using air line respirators in hazardous atmospheres must have safety harnesses and lines.
• This is performed for lifting/removing from hazardous atmospheres.
• Standby man or men with self-contained breathing apparatus is stationed at a fresh air base for emergency rescue.
• Workmen use safety belts and life lines to secure in specific environments.
• For example, working above unguarded surfaces, steep slopes, moving machinery, or heights of six (6) meters (20 ft.) or more, where falls are hazardous.

Safety Belts

• Made of chromed tanned leather, linen or cotton webbing and should measure at least 11.5 cm. (4 1/2 in.) wide and 0.65 cm. (1/4 in.)
• It must be thick with strength to support 114 kgs. (250 lbs.) without breaking.
• Hardware used in safety belts should have approximately equivalent strength as the full waist band.
• Buckles secure without slippage or failure, achieved by a single strap insertion through buckle in usual way.