Occupational health hazards: causes and remedies to prevent accidental injuries and deaths at the workplace

1. Occupational
Health
Hazards
By
Ms. Jigisha Pancholi
Head
Dept. of Biochemistry & Microbiology
IIAPS
Gujarat Ayurved University
Jamnagar

3. • Start date: 02 Dec 1984
• End date: 03 Dec 1984
• Location: Bhopal,
Madhya Pradesh, India
• Deaths: At least 3,787,
over 16,000 claimed
• Non-fatal injuries: At
least 558,125

5. Firecracker factory explosion
in Batala, Punjab on 4th Sep’19

6. Fatal and non-fatal accidents in factories in Gujarat (2011–
2014)
Year 2011 2012 2013 2014
No. of registered
factories
37546 39181 40910 42065
No. of non-fatal
accidents
3014 2781 2285 1751
No. of fatal accidents 249 216 218 249
No. of fatalities 249 216 229 259

8. Introduction
 Occupation means work or the working
place, hazard suggests the problems, thus
occupational health hazard denotes any kind
of health related problems in the working
place.
 It refers to the potential risks to health and
safety for those who work outside the
home.

9. Introduction
 As defined by the World Health Organization
(WHO) "occupational health deals with all
aspects of health and safety in the
workplace and has a strong focus on
primary prevention of hazards.
 Health has been defined as "a state of
complete physical, mental and social well-
being and not merely the absence of disease”

10. • Occupational health is a multidisciplinary
field of healthcare concerned with
enabling an individual to undertake
their occupation, in the way that causes
least harm to their health.
• According to WHO, this represents about
70 % of adult men and 60% of adult
women throughout the world.

11. • Rapid industrialization in India is giving
employment to millions of people in the formal
sector, and many more in the unorganized
sector. However, the absence of clear policies,
poorly enforced regulations, lack of systematic
reporting of occupational diseases, lamentable
socioeconomic conditions of the workers and
their limited access to healthcare make
occupational health and safety (OHS) a
critical area.

12. • Those in the field of occupational health
come from a wide range of disciplines and
professions including medicine,
psychology, epidemiology, physiotherapy
and rehabilitation, occupational therapy,
occupational medicine, human factors
and many others.
Introduction

13. • Professionals advise on a broad range of
occupational health matters. These include
how to avoid particular pre-existing
conditions causing a problem in the
occupation, correct posture for the work,
frequency of rest breaks, preventative
action that can be undertaken, and so forth.
Introduction

14. Aim of Occupational health
• Promotion and maintenance of highest degree
of physical, mental and social well being of
workers in all occupations
• Protection of workers in their employment
from risk factors
• Placing and maintenance of worker in an
occupational environment suitable to his
physiological and psychological capabilities

15. Types of occupational health
hazards
• Physical and mechanical health hazards
• Chemical health hazards
• Biological health hazards
• Psychological health hazards

16. Physical hazards

17. Physical hazards
• Physical hazards affect many people in the workplace.
• Occupational hearing loss is the most common work-related
injury in the United States, with 22 million workers exposed
to hazardous noise levels at work and an estimated $242
million spent annually on worker's compensation for
hearing loss disability.
• Falls are also a common cause of occupational injuries and
fatalities, especially in construction, transportation, healthcare,
building cleaning and maintenance.

18. Physical hazards
• Heat
• Cold
• Light
• Vibration
• Rays

19. Heat
• Leads to heatstroke
(Death due to heat)
• Heat exhaustion
(Headache, fatigue,
muscle weakness etc.)
• Heat syncope (Fainting)
• Heat cramps (Muscle
spasm)
• Burns

20. Who are at the risk?
• Agricultural workers
• Fire workers
• Fire fighters
• Civil engineers
• Factory workers
• Street sweepers
• Athletes
• Cook
• Oil refinery workers
• Welders
• Traffic policemen etc.

21. Cold
• Trench foot (Medical condition caused by
prolonged exposure of the feet to the damp,
unsanitary and cold conditions)
• Frostbite (Localised damage to the skin and other
tissues due to cold)
• Chilblains (Small, itchy, painful lumps that
develop on the skin by poor circulation of the
blood when exposed to cold temperatures)

23. Who are the risk?
• Workers in the long winter places
• Fishermen
• People working in the frozen food industry
• Soldiers
• Cold storage factory

24. Light
• Occupational cataract (Usually in people working with
radiation and X rays)
• Miners’ nystagmus (Occurs among coal miners, usually
of middle age and elderly, finds difficult to see in the dim
light)

25. Noise
• Occupational deafness
• Who are the risk?
• Civil engineers
• Construction workers
• Factory workers
• Mining engineers
• Airline workers
• Traffic policemen etc

26. Radiations
• Exposure to low levels for long time leads to Genetic
damage and cancer
• Exposure to high levels in short time leads to damage to
living tissue, skin burns and death
• Who are the risk?
• Working in manufacturing factories, researchers, nuclear
power industry, radiologists etc.

27. Vibrations
• Continuous work with such machines affects hands and
arms
• The nerve endings get damaged
• Who are at the risk?
• Hammer drill operators, Chain saw operators, Bulldozer
drivers, people working with pumps, compressors etc.

29. Chemical hazards

30. Tannery near Vellore

35. Chemical hazards
• Workers working in chemical industries or chemical labs or
agriculture etc. may get prone to chemical related health
problems.
• Inhalation and skin absorption are the key routes of entry
for chemical hazards.
• Chemicals like arsenic, lead, cadmium, petroleum, silica,
fumes, pesticides etc. may produce severe effect on
workers.
• Effects of chemical exposures range from acute skin rashes
and breathing difficulties to chronic diseases and illnesses,
such as reproductive health problems, cancer and diseases of
the respiratory system, liveretc.

38. Some of the heavy metals used
in
Ayurved Drugs manufacturing
Loha - Iron
Parad - Mercury
Suvarna - Gold
Rajat - Silver
Tamra - Copper
Mandur – Iron oxide
Vanga - Tin
Naga - Lead
Manahshila / Hartaal- Arsenic

39. MERCURY
• Mercury exists in various forms: elemental (or metallic) and
inorganic (to which people may be exposed through their
occupation); and organic (e.g., methylmercury, to which
people may be exposed through their diet).
• Mercury, such as thiomersal (ethyl mercury), is used in very
small amounts as a preservative in some vaccines and
pharmaceuticals.
• Compared to methyl mercury, ethyl mercury is very different.

40. MERCURY
• Ethylmercury is broken down by the body quickly and
does not accumulate
• These forms of mercury differ in their degree of toxicity
and in their effects on the nervous, digestive and immune
systems, and on lungs, kidneys, skin and eyes.

41. Mercury use in vaccines and
pharmaceuticals
• WHO has closely monitored scientific evidence relating
to the use of thiomersal as a vaccine preservative for
more than 10 years, and has consistently reached the
same conclusion: there is no evidence that the amount
of thiomersal used in vaccines poses a health risk.

44. SILICA

45. • Crystalline silica is a basic component of soil, sand,
granite, and many other minerals. Quartz is the most
common form of crystalline silica.
• All three forms may become respirable size particles
when workers chip, cut, drill, or grind objects that contain
crystalline silica.
• Silica exposure remains a serious threat to nearly 2
million U.S. workers, including more than 100,000
workers in high risk jobs such as abrasive blasting,
foundry work, stonecutting, rock drilling etc.

46. • Crystalline silica has been classified as a human lung
carcinogen.
• Additionally, breathing crystalline silica dust can cause
silicosis, which in severe cases can be disabling, or even fatal.
• The respirable silica dust enters the lungs and causes the
formation of scar tissue, thus reducing the lungs’ ability to take
in oxygen.
• There is no cure for silicosis.
• Since silicosis affects lung function, it makes one more
susceptible to lung infections like tuberculosis.

49. • Asbestos is the name given to six minerals that occur
naturally in the environment as bundles of fibers that can
be separated into thin, durable threads for use in
commercial and industrial applications. These fibers are
resistant to heat, fire, and chemicals and do not conduct
electricity.
Asbestos

50. Asbestos
• The building and construction industries have used it for
strengthening cement and plastics as well as for insulation,
roofing, fireproofing, and sound absorption.
• The shipbuilding industry has used asbestos to insulate
boilers, steam pipes, and hot water pipes.
• The automotive industry uses asbestos in vehicle brake shoes
and clutch pads.
• Asbestos has also been used in ceiling and floor tiles; paints,
coatings, adhesives; and plastics.
• In addition, asbestos has been found in vermiculite-containing
garden products and some talc-containing crayons.

52. LEAD

54. Lead
• Inorganic lead is a malleable, blue-gray, heavy metal that occurs
naturally in the Earth’s crust.
• Lead was one of the first metals used by humans and consequently,
the cause of the first recorded occupational disease (lead colic in a
4th century BC metal worker).
• Approximately 804,000 workers in general industry and an
additional 838,000 workers in construction are potentially exposed
to lead.
• Workers are exposed to lead as a result of the production, use,
maintenance, recycling, and disposal of lead material and products.
• Lead exposure occurs in most industry sectors including
construction, manufacturing, wholesale trade, transportation,
remediation and even recreation.

57. Biological hazard
• This category of hazards includes viruses, moulds,
bacteria, and blood-borne pathogens.
• Difficult to see, their effects can be both acute and
chronic.
• They are quite common in R&D work, where you can
find “virtually any human pathogen or organism” other
biologists study, whether genetically engineered or
unaltered (Klees & Joines, 1997).
• In one example, porcine pancreatic dust was connected to
a 40 to 50 percent bronchial hypersensitisation rate
among pharmaceutical workers during the 1980s

58. Biological hazard
• Laboratory-acquired allergies to animals are fairly
common, although communicable diseases spread by
animals are less likely.
• Other reported hazards in this category include:
brucellosis, encephalitis, Escherichia coli infections,
hepatitis, herpes viruses, HIV, lab-acquired infections, Q
fever, rabies, rat bite fever, shigellosis, tuberculosis etc.

60. Psychosocial hazards
• Is related to the way work is designed, organized and
managed, as well as the economic and social contexts of
work and is associated with psychiatric and/ or physical
injury or illness.
• It includes:
• Work related stress
• Excessive working time or over work
• Violence from outside the organization
• Emotional or verbal violence
• Sexual violence
• Exposure to unhealthy elements during meetings with business
associates , eg: tobacco and alcohol
• Politics etc.

61. Thank you !
“Safety Does Not Happen By Accident”