Understanding how risk is perceived by workers is necessary for effective risk communication and risk management. This study adapts key elements of the psychometric perspective to characterize occupational risk perception at a worker level. A total of 313 Spanish healthcare workers evaluated relevant hazards in their workplaces related to biological, ergonomic and organizational factors. A ques...

The poultry abattoir industry continues to grow and contribute significantly to the gross domestic product in many countries. The industry expects working shifts of eight to eleven hours, during which workers are exposed to occupational hazards which include physical hazards ranging from noise, vibration, exposure to cold and ergonomic stress from manual, repetitive tasks that require force. A ...

BACKGROUND Those handling deceased individuals, including the funeral industry, face a variety of health and safety hazards including occupationally acquired infectious disease. AIMS To identify the knowledge, attitudes and beliefs of Irish funeral industry workers towards occupational hazards and infectious disease in 2009. METHODS The sample analysed consisted of all listed member premise...

BACKGROUND Around the globe, work has a heavy impact on health. To better advise policy makers, we assessed the global burden of disease and injury due to selected occupational hazards. This article presents an overview, and describes the methodology employed in the companion studies. METHODS Using the World Health Organization (WHO) Comparative Risk Assessment methodology, we applied relativ...

The potential impacts of climate change (CC) on Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) have been studied a little in tropical countries, while they received no attention in northern industrialized countries with a temperate climate. This work aimed to establish an overview of the potential links between CC and OHS in those countries and to determine research priorities for Quebec, Canada. A narra...

The Supreme Court's March 1991 ruling in United Automobile Workers (UAW) versus Johnson Controls barring corporate "fetal protection policies" was a major victory for women's employment rights and has health and safety implications for both sexes. However, 2 years after the Court's decision, the union's work is far from over. The UAW has yet to see what policy Johnson Controls will implement in...

December 2008, Vol. 98, No. 12 SAMJ Occupational health is vital in any industry to evaluate risks, control hazards, protect staff, and prevent occupational injuries and diseases. Occupational health and safety (OHS) needs in a health care setting are no different from those in a factory or other place of business. Even though the risks to health care personnel are different, the principles and...

Occupational Health and Safety is one of the most important services. Effective and efficient Occupational Health and Safety measures in industries lead to reduction in number of accidents and loss and injury to human lives, safety to assets, continuous production etc. But the hazards cannot be completely mitigated and thus there is a need to develop and implement Occupational Health and Safety...

The publication on ‘‘Occupational hazards due to exposure to waste anesthetic gases’’ is very interesting. Lucio LMC, Braz et al. noted that ‘‘The occupational hazards related to WAGs including genotoxicity, mutagenicity and oxidative stress, stand as a public health issue and must be acknowledged by exposed personnel and responsible authorities, especially in developing countries. Thus, it is ...

BACKGROUND Household service work has been largely absent from occupational health studies. We examine the occupational hazards and health effects identified by immigrant women household service workers. METHODS Exploratory, descriptive study of 46 documented and undocumented immigrant women in household services in Spain, using a phenomenological approach. Data were collected between Septemb...