Safety Assessment Part 3: Identify Workplace Health Hazards

people doing research on a computer

When you think about workplace safety, your brain immediately jumps to physical accidents and injury, right? While it’s good to keep your eye on those things, you can’t forget workplace health hazards that could attack your employees from the inside out.

OSHA states that “health hazards may cause measurable changes in the body.” This could mean anything from impacting breathing to illness or even cancer. Due to the nature of these threats, they can be harder to detect than safety hazards that can lead to physical accidents, but no less dangerous.

Common Workplace Health Hazards

Here are a few health dangers to keep in mind and what to look for:

  • Chemical hazards – Review safety data sheets (SDS) and product labels to identify highly volatile chemicals that you use in large quantities or enclosed spaces. Try to identify any areas or activities that could expose workers to dangerous chemicals. Health hazards from chemicals could come in the form of chemical burns, noxious fumes, or combustibility.
  • Physical hazards – Think about areas with excessive noise or high levels of heat. Also, keep in mind any sources of radiation like x-ray machines or radioactive materials. These issues may seem minor on any given day, but long-term exposure could lead to permanent physical damage.
  • Biological hazards – Are there any possible sources of exposure to mold, toxic plants, infectious diseases? What about animal materials such as fur that could cause an allergic reaction? It may not be possible to avoid some of these risks entirely, but knowing what and where they are will allow you to create a means for dealing with them safely through protective measures.
  • Ergonomic risk factors – Consider jobs that require repetitive motions, heavy lifting, or work reaching above the shoulders. Even desk work with a computer can cause harm without proper ergonomic solutions in place. When employees put unneeded strain on their bodies, the long-term effects can be debilitating.
  • Air quality – Having clean air to breathe is essential to any healthy work environment. Air pollutants can come in the form of dust particles, allergens, mold or airborne chemicals. If you’re worried about air quality, it’s worth your while to bring in professionals who can test the air properly for contaminants and gasses that could cause health risks.

Acute vs Chronic Health Hazards

Another thing to keep in mind is the different effects these hazards may have on employees. Two primary categories for health hazards are “acute” and “chronic.” While both can be deadly serious, they require different approaches for nullifying their effects.

Acute Health Hazards: Acute health hazards happen rapidly, though the effects may be long-lasting. Exposure to poisonous gas, bacteria or viruses could quickly lead to illness or even death. The best remedy for acute health hazards is to predict the possibility and minimize or eliminate the chances of exposure.

Chronic Health Hazards: Chronic health hazards are just the opposite. They build up over time. Consistently breathing in dust particles or chemical fumes can slowly damage the lungs. Poor ergonomics can wreak havoc on the body over time. Chronic health hazards can be easy to dismiss because they don’t appear to be very dangerous. However, the long-term effects can be devastating to the body. While it may not always be possible to eliminate these hazards, such as dust for construction workers, proper PPE and other safety measures can mitigate the danger.

A Healthy Workplace is a Happy Workplace

Providing a healthy work environment for your employees not only protects their well-being and job enjoyment, but it helps to prevent accidents as well. Employees who become fatigued, dizzy, or ill from workplace health hazards are more likely to make mistakes that can lead to serious accidents and injury.

Some health hazards are very difficult to detect and may require bringing in professionals with specialized knowledge and tools to do a proper examination of your workplace, If you’re not confident that you have everything you need to do a proper health hazard assessment, it’s worth the investment to bring in professionals.

Identifying health hazards is just one of the steps to doing a full safety assessment of your facility, and it’s one that is often overlooked. By taking the time to understand and fix any health risks you may have, you’re showing your employees that you care about their health for today and for their future.