Occupational Health and Safety

• Basic occupational health and safety are vital in the workplace.
• 4 Construction workers in Zamboanga City were electrocuted building a warehouse, resulting in one death.
• In the Phillipines, 51 workers have died and eight others injured in 22 fatal accidents.

Occupational Health and Safety

• A discipline with a broad scope involving three major fields.
• Those are Occupational Safety, Occupational Health, and Industrial Hygiene

Occupational Safety

• Deals with understanding the causes of accidents at work.
• Focuses on preventing unsafe acts and conditions in any workplace.
• Discusses concepts on good housekeeping, material handling, machine safety, electrical safety, fire prevention, safety inspections, and accident investigations.

Occupational Health

• Addresses how work hazards and risks cause illnesses.
• Health programs are essential in controlling work-related illnesses and occupational diseases.

Industrial Hygiene

• Involves identification, evaluation, and control of physical, chemical, biological, and ergonomic hazards.

OSH Aims

• Promotion and maintenance of the highest degree of physical, mental, and social well-being of workers
• Preventing adverse health effects from working conditions
• Placing and maintaining workers in an occupational environment adapted to their physical and mental needs.
• Adapting work to humans, not vice versa

Hazard Explained

• A source or situation with a potential to cause harm.
• Including injury, ill health, damage to property, or the environment

Risk Explained

• A combination of the likelihood of a hazardous event occurring.
• Includes severity of injury or damage to health, property, or the environment.

OSH In Global and Local Levels

• 395 million workers worldwide sustained a non-fatal work injury in 2019.
• Approximately 2.93 million workers died due to work-related factors in 2019.
• This is a 12% increase compared to 2000.
• The global labor force increased by 26% from 2000 to 2019, growing from 2.75 billion to 3.46 billion.
• Work-related diseases attributed to 2.6 million deaths, while work accidents resulted in 330,000 deaths.
• The diseases that caused the most fatalities were circulatory diseases, malignant neoplasms, and respiratory diseases
• Those three categories contributed to approximately 75% of total work-related mortality.
• Work-related fatalities represented 6.71% of all deaths globally.
• Occupational injuries accounted for 8.48% of all fatal injuries.
• Work-related diseases contributed to 6.54% of all global fatalities due to disease.
• The attributable fraction of work-related deaths is highest in Africa at 7.39%, followed by Asia and the Pacific at 7.13%, and Oceania at 6.52%.
• The male mortality rate is 51.4 per 100,000 working-age adults.
• The female rate stands at 17.2 per 100,000. Asia and the Pacific account for almost 63% of global work-related mortality.

OSH In the Phillipines

• Open wounds were the most common injury, contributing 39.9% of the 12,076 cases involving lost workdays.
• Superficial injuries ranked second at 19%, followed by dislocations, sprains, and strains at 9%.
• The wrist and hand were the most injured body parts (39.7%).
• Lower extremities at 15.3% and the head at 11.9% were also injured.
• The leading cause of work-related injury was stepping on, striking against, or being struck by objects (34.1%).
• Other causes included being caught by or between objects (23.6%) and falls (11.6%).
• Machinery and equipment were the top cause of workplace injury, resulting in 27.5% of absences.
• Materials and objects (23.7%) and hand tools (18.8%) were other contributors.
• Plant and machine operators and assemblers faced the greatest risk in occupational injuries with lost workdays at 29.1%.
• They are followed by elementary occupations at 24.8%.
• Workers in manufacturing faced the highest share of occupational diseases - 21.8% (28,947 cases).
• Information and Communications followed at (15.4% )20,413 cases
• Human Health and Social Work Activities Except Public Health Activities (12.6%)16,751 cases

Accidents Explained

• An accident is an unexpected, unforeseen, unplanned, and unwanted occurrence or event.
• It causes damage or loss of materials, property, injury, or death.

Common Accidents

• Fire
• Slip and Fall
• Electrocution

The Costs of Accidents

• Direct costs include medical expenses, insurance premiums, penalties, litigation, equipment replacement, and wasted raw materials.
• Indirect costs have a more damaging impact on workers, their families, companies, and the community.
• Indirect costs include lost productivity, hiring and training replacement workers, and equipment downtime.

Unsafe/Unhealthy Act

• ANSI defines this as any human action that violates a commonly accepted safe work procedure or standard operating procedure.
• Unsafe acts occur due to improper attitudes, like physical limitations, or lack of knowledge or skills.
• Examples include smoking in no smoking areas, driving without a license, reporting to work impaired, and improper storage of hazardous materials.

Unsafe/Unhealthy Condition

• ANSI defines this as the physical or chemical property of a material, machine, or environment that could cause injury, damage, or loss.
• Examples include slippery floors, poor storage, protruding nails, and scattered objects.

Poor Housekeeping

• A general term referring to the condition or situation of the workplace that needs to be addressed.
• One should provide specific information, like dusty workplace and improper storage of paints.

Non-Wearing of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)

• A generalized statement of an unsafe act.
• You must specify the kind of PPE that the worker is not wearing.
• Examples: not wearing gloves and a mask while mixing chemicals, goggles while welding, or safety shoes while walking on slippery surface.

These questions cover potential implications of changes in the global labor force, intervention strategies, and the impact of occupational health and safety measures on work-related fatalities. It also asks about the rates of occupational deaths and diseases. The quiz touches on circulatory diseases among employees and regional differences in work-related deaths.