1. Essential, primary preventive,
occupational safety and health interventions
for low and middle income countries
Evidence Report
Jos Verbeek
Finnish Institute of Occupational Health
Cochrane Occupational Safety and Health Review Group
PO Box 310
70701 Kuopio
Finland
e-mail: jos.verbeek@ttl.fi
tel: +358-46-8108709
1

2. Contents
1. Introduction .................................................................................................................................................................. 4
2. Methods ......................................................................................................................................................................... 4
From burden of occupational diseases and injuries to exposure .................................................................................. 6
Work-related cancer and its related exposure ............................................................................................................. 7
Pneumoconiosis and related exposures ....................................................................................................................... 8
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and related exposures................................................................................. 8
Occupational Asthma and related exposures ............................................................................................................... 9
Noise induced hearing loss and related noise exposure .............................................................................................. 9
Back Pain and related biomechanical exposure .......................................................................................................... 9
Injuries and related exposure to hazardous situations .............................................................................................. 10
From exposure to preventive interventions ................................................................................................................ 11
3. Evidence of effectiveness of occupational health interventions .............................................................................. 14
3.1 Interventions for decreasing inhalation exposure ................................................................................................. 14
Environmental interventions: substitution ....................................................................................................... 14
Environmental interventions: other control measures ...................................................................................... 15
Environmental measures: regulation and other incentives ............................................................................... 18
Behavioural: respiratory protection for preventing inhalation exposure .......................................................... 18
Clinical: pre-employment examinations and drugs .......................................................................................... 18
3.2 Interventions for decreasing exposure to noise .................................................................................................... 19
Environmental interventions ............................................................................................................................ 20
Behavioural interventions: promotion of hearing protection ........................................................................... 20
Clinical interventions ....................................................................................................................................... 21
3.3 Interventions for decreasing biomechanical exposure ......................................................................................... 21
Environmental interventions: load reduction and ergonomics ......................................................................... 22
Behavioural interventions: education and training .......................................................................................... 22
Clinical interventions: pre-employment examinations .................................................................................... 23
3.4 Interventions for prevention of injuries ................................................................................................................ 23
Environmental interventions ............................................................................................................................ 23
Prevention of injuries in agriculture and construction industry ....................................................................... 25
Behavioural interventions: Occupational Safety Training ............................................................................... 26
Behavioural safety interventions: feedback and rewards ................................................................................. 27
Clinical: Pre-employment examinations for preventing injuries ..................................................................... 28
3.5. Approaches to Small Enterprises ........................................................................................................................ 28
4. Conclusions and discussion ........................................................................................................................................ 29
8. References.................................................................................................................................................................... 35
9. Appendices .................................................................................................................................................................. 40
2

3. Executive Summary
There is still a considerable global burden of occupational diseases and injuries that leads to many fatalities
each year. It is not well known which interventions can effectively reduce the exposures at work which
eventually cause these occupational diseases and injuries. The objective of this report is to provide the
available evidence from systematic reviews of essential preventive interventions that can reduce the global
burden of occupational diseases and injuries.
Essential interventions are interventions that reduce most of the global burden of occupational disease and
injuries. These interventions should therefore aim to reduce the incidence of work-related cancer, dust-
related diseases, occupational asthma, COPD, noise-induced hearing loss, back pain and occupational
injuries. Primary prevention of those diseases occurs through reduction of the exposures that lead to these
diseases. These interventions are categorised as environmental, behavioural and clinical. The literature was
searched to locate systematic reviews of interventions that can reduce each of these exposures through any of
these interventions.
The evidence available in these systematic reviews shows that there are many technical measures to reduce
exposure available that can have a major impact on the global burden of work-related cancer, dust-related
diseases, asthma, COPD, noise and injuries. However, to effectuate this potential, better implementation is
needed. This can be realised by better regulation, reinforcement or incentives for employers. Feedback and
rewards for workers probably help in reducing occupational injuries. However, the available systematic
reviews do not provide evidence that back pain can be prevented. Personal protective equipment also has
technical potential to reduce exposure but without proper use and instruction this can not be realised. On the
contrary, there is no evidence in the available reviews that education and training reduce occupational
disease and injuries. Clinical interventions such as drugs and health examinations have little to offer for
primary prevention of occupational diseases and injuries.
More and better systematic reviews are needed to enable a better overview of the evidence especially in the
area of injury prevention.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Irja Laamanen and Leena Isotalo, information specialists at FIOH for helping me with the
searching of systematic reviews
3

4. 1. Introduction
Experts estimate that less than 15% of the global workforce has some coverage with occupational health
services.1 The 60th World Health Assembly in 2007 urged the 193 Member States of WHO to work towards
full coverage with essential interventions and basic occupational health services, particularly in agriculture,
small and medium size enterprises, informal economy, and migrant workers. WHO was requested to provide
guidance to countries on basic packages, tools, working methods and models of good practices for
occupational health services and to stimulate international efforts for capacity building as part of the Global
Plan of Action on Workers' Health 2008‐2017.2
The range of the interventions to prevent occupational and work‐related diseases and injuries may include
both clinical (e.g. health examinations) and non‐clinical interventions (e.g. workplace risk assessment). The
interventions can be categorised as primary preventive interventions and treatment interventions. Primary
preventive interventions aim at preventing disease or injury outcomes before the disease or injury process
has started. In occupational health, this means usually that efforts are directed at decreasing exposure known
to be hazardous to health. Providers of such interventions may include health practitioners in clinical settings
such as primary care centres, non‐clinical providers such as workers' representatives and employees
responsible for health and safety in the enterprise or occupational hygiene and safety experts in specialized
occupational health services.
Many countries have already in place some form of basic occupational health services to deliver essential
interventions for the prevention of occupational and work‐related diseases and injuries 1. However, it is not
well known what evidence exists for the effectiveness of these interventions. To be better able to develop
guidance on essential primary preventive occupational health and safety interventions this evidence is
needed. WHO is especially interested in evidence for essential interventions in basic occupational health
services targeted at underserved working populations with constrained resources and integrated in primary
health care. The first step in this process of guidance development is to locate systematic reviews that have
synthesised the evidence available from primary studies.
Based on available systematic reviews, I report here what is the evidence for the effectiveness of the most
essential occupational health interventions for primary prevention of work‐related diseases and injuries in
agriculture, small and medium sized enterprises and the informal economy across WHO regions.
2. Methods
4

5. To answer this policy and research question I will first further define essential occupational health
interventions for primary prevention of occupational diseases and injuries. These essential interventions
should prevent occupational diseases and injuries in underserved populations with constrained resources. The
mechanism behind such interventions is that they cut the causal chain between exposure at work and the
resulting occupational disease or injury (figure 1).3 Basically, occupational health interventions can be
categorised into three major classes: environmental, behavioural and clinical. Environmental interventions
aim at changing the working environment in order to eliminate the exposure in a technical sense.
Behavioural interventions focus on individual workers' behaviour to eliminate exposure such as increasing
the use of personal protective equipment. Clinical interventions use a clinical method to prevent disease such
as vaccination. Even though other preventive methods are available such as screening or early diagnosis, I
will not take these into consideration because I will focus entirely on primary prevention.
Environmental interventions Behavioural Interventions Clinical Interventions
Interventions: Interventions: Interventions:
E.g Work-site visits. E.g. Health E.g.Treatment
Organisational promotion. Counselling
changes. Regulation. Education. Reward- Vaccination
Technical changes: punishment.
substitution, Personal protective
ventilation. equipment
Worker Health
Behaviour
Risk factor at work Disease, Disability, Injury
Verbeek, Scand J WEH 2004
figure 1: Model of occupational health interventions
I consider those interventions as essential that aim at eliminating exposures with the biggest impact on the
target population. The WHO has examined the global burden of occupational disease in a recent project.4 I
took the diseases and injuries that are mentioned in this report as the point of departure. Next, I determined
which exposure lead to these diseases and injuries. This resulted in a limited list of exposures that should be
addressed by essential interventions.
5

6. In the next step, I looked for evidence of effectiveness of essential interventions as generated by evaluation
research and reported in the literature. Since it would be impossible to look for all primary studies on all
exposures and interventions I searched only for evidence at an aggregated level in the form of systematic
reviews. I defined systematic reviews as reviews of the literature that had a clearly formulated question and
searched electronic databases. I combined search strategies for finding occupational safety and health
intervention studies with search strategies for finding systematic reviews. For locating occupational safety
and health intervention studies, I used the search strategy developed by the Cochrane Occupational Health
Field 1 and for locating systematic reviews I used the search strategy developed by the Perosh Systematic
Clearing House Working Group (www.perosh.eu)2. In principle, I did not search for primary studies when
there were no systematic reviews available. I searched first in Medline through Pubmed and then in Embase
through OvidSP to see if any additional systematic reviews could be found.
I explicitly did not review the literature on secondary prevention, treatment or rehabilitation. Even though
there are many effective and essential interventions that address rehabilitation issues and that could be
carried out in a low-resource setting, these are not included because this project only addresses primary
prevention.
From burden of occupational diseases and injuries to exposure
Table 1 provides an overview of the essential occupational diseases and injuries with a big impact on the
target population derived from the global burden of disease project.4;5 The target group of the essential
occupational health interventions consists of workers in small businesses in low and middle income countries
especially in agriculture and the so-called informal sector.
Work-related disorder to be prevented Risk factors to be addressed
1. Work-related Cancer Arsenic, asbestos, berylium, cadmium, chromium, diesel
exhaust, nickel, silica, benzene, ionizing radiation, ethelyne
oxide
2. Asthma Biological agents: grains, flours, plants, gums, fur, feathers,
insects, fungi, drugs, woods
chemical agents: chlorofluorocarbons, alcohols, metals,
welding fumes
3. COPD Non-specific dusts and fumes
4. Pneumoconiosis Silica-containing dusts
5. Noise-induced Hearing Loss Sound levels above 80 dB(A)
1
((effect*[tw] OR control[tw] OR controls*[tw] OR controla*[tw] OR controle*[tw] OR controli*[tw] OR
controll*[tw] OR evaluation*[tw] OR program*[tw] OR prevention*[tw] OR protect*[tw]) AND (work[tw]
OR works*[tw] OR work'*[tw] OR worka*[tw] OR worke*[tw] OR workg*[tw] OR worki*[tw] OR
workl*[tw] OR workp*[tw] OR occupation*[tw]) NOT animals[mh])
2
(meta-analysis[mh] OR meta-analysis[pt] OR meta-analysis[tiab] OR review[pt] OR review[tiab]) NOT
(letter[pt] OR editorial[pt] OR comment[pt]) NOT ((animals[Mesh:noexp]) NOT (humans[Mesh]))
6

7. 6. Back Pain Ergonomic risk factors: manual material handling, bending
and twisting, heavy physical load, static work posture,
repetitive movements, whole-body vibration, stress-related
risk factors
7. Injury Prevention Hazardous situations at work
Table 1 Overview of risk factors to be addressed by essential occupational health interventions
Work-related cancer and its related exposure
For work-related cancer, there are two major cancer types that are associated with the exposures at work.
Cancer of the trachea, bronchus or lung is associated with inhalatory exposure to arsenic, asbestos,
beryllium, cadmium, chromium, diesel exhaust, nickel and silica and radon. Leukaemia is associated with
exposure to benzene, ionizing radiation and ethelyne oxide. Except for arsenic and nickel the effects of all
these agents come through inhalation. Arsenic's route of exposure is through ingestion and for nickel it can
be both ingestion and skin absorption.6
Exposure to these agents in low and middle income countries is not self-evident. Beryllium is only used in a
small and specific industry. The same holds for benzene, ionizing radiation and ethelyne oxide which are
mainly used in chemical and other industries and in small amounts in health care. These compounds are thus
outside the scope of this study.
Arsenic is an important component of pesticides and herbicides and used in timber treatment and pigments.
However, exposure mainly occurs during the manufacturing of these products. It is therefore not expected
that this exposure will be very prevalent among our target group and thus it falls outside the scope of this
study. Arsenic occurs also naturally in the soil and leads to arsenic contaminated ground water. A main
source of exposure to arsenic is through the use of contaminated ground water for cooking. There are several
solutions to prevent uptake of arsenic from contaminated groundwater but this is outside the scope of this
occupational health study.
Both cadmium and nickel are ingredients of batteries that have a ubiquitous presence but this does not lead to
occupational exposure of our target population. Cadmium, chromium and nickel are present in welding
fumes. Welding is a ubiquitous activity that is very prevalent in all parts of the world. Therefore I included
interventions for reducing the risk of inhaling welding fumes.
Exposure to diesel exhaust is prevalent around the world but it is only to a limited extent occupational.
Occupational exposure mainly occurs in traffic controllers, railroad workers and truck/car drivers which are
outside the scope of this study.
Asbestos and silica are widely spread around the world and lead to health problems through inhalation. Both
substances lead also to pneumoconiosis. Exposure to asbestos occurs in the asbestos mining, ship building
7

8. and construction industry. The latter seems most relevant for our study. The same holds for silica, to which
workers are exposed during mining of coal and in the construction industry during all kinds of activities that
involve cutting, drilling or blasting of stone that contains silica. These activities occur frequently throughout
the world and should be the focus of preventive activities and are thus included.
After considering the prevalence of exposure in LMI-countries, I further elaborated preventive activities to
lower exposure to asbestos, silica and welding fumes because these are the main exposures that cause work-
related cancer.
Virtually all exposure to asbestos, silica and welding fumes occurs through inhalation. Preventive efforts
should thus focus on prevention of inhalation of these substances. Technically, there are two approaches to
prevent inhalation: source-oriented and exposure-oriented. Source-oriented solutions are directed at changing
the source in the production process by substituting for example asbestos with another material so that no
fibres will be released anymore. Exposure-oriented solutions focus on taking away the exposure without
actually eliminating or reducing the source. Examples of exposure-oriented solution are local exhaust
ventilation, personal protective equipment or dust control measures. Especially exposure to asbestos and
silica occurs as a dust in which tiny solid particles are carried by air currents and are capable of remaining in
suspension for a period of time. In a technical sense, dust control is well studied and there is a wealth of
information on control measures both source-oriented and exposure-oriented.7
Pneumoconiosis and related exposures
Pneumoconiosis is the term used for all dust damage done to the alveolar part of the lung including the parts
of the lung that do not have a mucociliary lining, but it does not include bronchitis, asthma or cancers by
convention.6 Pneumoconiosis can thus be caused by a number of inorganic dusts the toxicity of which
depends on particle size, shape and chemical composition of the dust. The most toxic are asbestos fibres and
silica dust. The most commonly occurring is coal dust. Ultimately the disease leads to fibrosis and
emphysema of the lung. There is no cure and the only way to prevent the disease is to lower dust levels or
eliminate exposure totally. Exposure to asbestos, silica and coal dust is a relevant exposure for low and
middle income countries.
The cause of pneumoconiosis is inhaled dust and therefore dust control and prevention of inhalation are also
here the hallmark of prevention.
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and related exposures
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), defined as non-reversible chronic airflow limitations, is
related to dust exposure which is a comparable route of exposure as in pneumoconiosis or occupational
asthma.
8

9. Primary prevention thus uses the same pathways and I will not further elaborate the prevention of COPD
only. I assume that by preventing pneumoconiosis and occupational asthma also COPD will be prevented.
Occupational Asthma and related exposures
Also the primary prevention of occupational asthma is based on the prevention of inhalation of substances
known to cause asthma. These can be divided into high molecular weight substances, usually organic dusts
such as grain and wood dusts, and low molecular weight substances such as diisocyanates, metals and
welding fumes.
Primary prevention of occupational asthma is thus similar to primary prevention of inhalation exposure and
will require the same means as for other inhalation exposure.8
Noise induced hearing loss and related noise exposure
Noise induced hearing loss is caused by long term exposure to noise at levels greater than 80 dB(A). The
dB(A) stands for decibels for which the sound level has been corrected according to the hearing abilities of
the human ear. Once hearing ability has been lost, there are no means to recover the lost capacity.
Therefore, decreasing exposure to noise levels greater than 80 dB(A) is the only means of prevention for
noise induced hearing loss.
However, it is clear that not every worker is equally sensitive to the damaging effects of noise. Even after
forty years of exposure to 100 dB(A) a substantial proportion of workers will still have normal hearing for
their age.9 Given these differences in sensitivity, early detection of workers who are most susceptibility to
noise and focussing our preventive efforts on these workers would be worthwhile. Currently, such a test is
however not available and we are not able to accurately predict who will sustain the greatest hearing loss.10
This leaves us with exposure reduction as the main means of prevention. Along the same lines as with
inhalation exposure prevention, there are two general approaches for exposure reduction: technical
engineering controls and hearing protection. I will look for evidence for these two approaches.
Back Pain and related biomechanical exposure
For back pain, there is no clear cut physical model that explains how exposure at work causes back pain
comparable to exposure to silica dust and silicosis. This makes the primary prevention of back pain more
complicated than inhalation exposure prevention. The cardinal symptom of back pain is subjective and has
various dimensions that are difficult to measure. Even though attempts to standardise approaches to
measuring back pain have been undertaken, reporting of back pain as an outcome still varies widely across
studies 11. In general, two different models of occupational back pain causation are in use. One model is that
back pain occurs because biomechanical overload during a considerable time period has led to osteoarthritis
9

10. of the vertebrae and the intervertebral discs in the lumbar spine. These anatomical and physiological
changes, in turn, lead to pain sensation. Psychosocial stress is thought of as an intermediary factor in this
process. Stress can either lead to different positions leading to greater wear and tear of the lumbar spine or it
can lead to an increased pain sensation. Another model used mainly in the North American workers'
compensation insurance context is the idea of a back injury that results from biomechanical overload at
work. The idea of an injury implies that there is an immediate connection between the overload and the
resulting pain. Thus, only back pain that occurs in immediate connection to the biomechanical overload is
recognised as occupational back pain. For our search for relevant exposures, both models would lead to the
same inference that exposure to biomechanical overload of the lumbar spine is the main cause of back pain.
Primary preventive interventions should therefore lead to a decrease of biomechanical exposure.
Even though back pain as such is an unpleasant experience, more importantly back pain leads to incapacity
for work with resulting increase in sick leave and long term occupational disability. Because this is a major
problem both for the afflicted individual and society at large, many preventive efforts thus focus on
preventing disability. More psychosocial factors, both at individual, company and society level, influence the
pathway from back pain to back disability. The primary cause will still be the origin of back pain and
primary prevention would still aim at taking away these causes.
Biomechanical overload of the lumbar spine is defined as a load that exceeds the tolerability of the structures
of the spine. There is no consensus on how to calculate this 12. Nevertheless, consensus exits on activities
that increase the load on the spine and that should be minimised. These activities are manual material
handling such as lifting, frequent bending and twisting of the lumbar spine and exposure to whole-body
vibration 13.
Biomechanical overload seems a very common exposure in LMIC where work is less mechanised and
sophisticated manual material handling aids are less available. Therefore, I searched for evidence of
effectiveness of interventions that can decrease biomechanical exposure at work especially through lifting,
bending and twisting and whole-body vibration.
Injuries and related exposure to hazardous situations
The etiology of injuries is more complicated than that of occupational diseases and research has long been
hampered by a lack of a conceptual framework. Even though it is not always easy to discern injuries from
illnesses, I will define injuries as sudden-onset occupational injuries where energy exchange produces
immediately discernable tissue damage 14.
In the public health arena, Haddon was one of the first to model the etiology of injuries. He argued that an
injury results from the interaction between a host, an agent and the environment. In this model the host is the
person who receives the energy and the agent is the vector that transfers the energy. In addition, Haddon
10

11. conceptualised three temporal phases that determine the likelihood of injury. First, there is the pre-event
phase that includes the activities and the conditions of the host, the agent and the environment. Then there is
the event during which the energy is transferred to the host. In the post-event phase first-aid and medical care
can still add to survival and recovery. Together the temporal and energy dimensions make up the so-called
Haddon matrix that can be used as an analytical tool for injury prevention. Preventive approaches are further
divided into active and passive approaches in which the passive approach is, counter-intuitively, considered
the most effective. An active approach means that a person has to actively take countermeasures to avoid
injury whereas the passive approach does not require human interaction 15-18.
Another approach comes from psychology where the orientation has been on behavioural theories to explain
occupational injuries. Based on a meta-analysis of personal and environmental risk factors for injuries and
accidents, Christian and Wallace (2009) put forward a conceptual model of 'workplace safety'.19 In the
model, situation-related factors such as safety climate and leadership interact with person-related factors
such as personality characteristics, job attitudes and safety knowledge and motivation. Together, the
situational and personal factors shape safety performance such as safety compliance and safety participation
which ultimately leads to the prevention of injuries.
Some sectors are notoriously more dangerous than others. For example agriculture and construction industry
are among the sectors with the highest injury rates 20;21. In addition, certain groups of workers sustain more
injuries such as immigrant workers.22
It seems, that the conceptual model of injury etiology fits well with the approach of primary prevention that I
have taken in this report. I looked for evidence of effectiveness of environmental and behavioural
interventions that address hazardous situations in the pre-event phase.
From exposure to preventive interventions
For exposure reduction, the general approach is, similar to other risk reduction strategies, a three step
approach in which risks first have to be identified, then evaluated and finally controlled or managed. For the
management of especially chemical health hazards this approach has been best developed but the strategy is
applicable to all kinds of risk problems.
In practice many approaches have been developed to facilitate risk reduction. For example hazard
identification checklists have been developed that list potential risks in specific businesses. Such check lists
enable workers or occupational health professionals to immediately focus on problems at hand in their
specific business.23
Especially the evaluation of chemical risks is greatly facilitated by the lists of Occupational Exposure Limits
(OEL). An OEL list states for a number of chemicals what the level of exposure is below which there is no
11

12. appreciable health risk. Most of these lists are available through the Internet nowadays.24 In practice, this
means that one measures the exposure in a specific workplace and compares this with the appropriate OEL.
If the exposure is below the OEL, no control measures are needed.
However, this approach, of first measuring risks and than evaluating, has been criticised especially for small
businesses because it focuses very much on measurement strategies. Measurement of chemicals often
requires specific professional expertise and financial resources that is not available in small businesses and
thus, valuable resources are spent on activities that do not necessary lead to risk control. Therefore,
Ellenbecker argued that risk control strategies in small businesses much better immediately focus on
engineering controls than on measuring and evaluating.25
Engineering controls or interventions are part of the so-called hierarchy of controls. The meaning of this
hierarchy is that is postulated that some control measures should always take priority over other control
measures because they are valued higher. Basically, this theoretical approach lists two approaches of
exposure reduction: engineering controls and administrative controls. Engineering or technical controls
comprise exposure reduction through substitution of the hazardous agent or process changes that eliminate
exposure and isolation or ventilation of the source of exposure. Administrative controls comprise personal
protective equipment, worker education and training and scheduling work such that the duration of exposure
is reduced. Because engineering controls solve exposure problems in a more fundamental way, they are
always to be preferred over the administrative controls. For example, substitution of the source should be
preferred over the other solutions that are supposed to solve exposure problems less well. Since this is a
theoretical approach it is unclear how this works out in practice.
Applying engineering controls without an intermediate step of carefully evaluating the exposure levels is
also in line with the idea that many exposures do not really have a level below which there are no health
effects. Even though there are OELs for ionizing radiation, the strategy here is to get the exposure As Low
As Reasonably Achievable (ALARA) because there is no real threshold for an effect on health and with each
increase in exposure there is a concurrent increase in risk to a worker. The OEL is based on what is
considered an acceptable risk compared to other activities in life but this does not guarantee absolute
protection.26
Another related concept that has been developed in the control of hazardous chemical exposures at work in
the past decade is the so-called control-banding.27 "The concept is to put chemicals (and other substances and
processes) into one of a number of “bands” depending on its hazard. The risk is a combination of the
inherent toxicity of the substance and the likely exposure. The exposure is assessed qualitatively by
determining the form in which the chemical exists (particle size, gas, vapour), the quantity used, and the
processes in which it is used. The approach recommends control strategies to be chosen prior to and possibly
in lieu of exposure measurements taken in the workplace. Control banding may be useful in situations where
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13. there are no OELs and/or when quantitative exposure assessments would be difficult to obtain (e.g., small
industries that lack the technical expertise or in developing nations)." 28
Thus, it follows that for primary prevention of occupational diseases and injuries, specifically environmental
interventions should be the primary choice. If these are not available, behavioural or clinical interventions
can be used such as education and training or health examinations.
In terms of environmental interventions, it is important to make a distinction between interventions that are
technically possible and that work under laboratory conditions and the effect of these interventions under
field conditions. Dust control measures, for example, are effective provided that they are carried out
appropriately. However, the implementation of these technical measures in work places is an entirely
different matter. How can we make an employer or a worker take measures and change their working
routines so that no dust will be stirred up? For an effective occupational health intervention, we need a
control measure that is technically working but as such this is not sufficient. In addition, we also need
interventions that convince employers and workers to change their behaviour and implement the technical
control measures. Niewöhner and Cox have nicely illustrated this in what they call the Mental Models
Approach 29;30. They showed that it is highly unlikely that safety information as provided by Material Safety
Data Sheets will be understood and used by managers and workers in its current technical format. If
information is taken up and acted upon, depends on the mental model that managers and workers have of the
health hazards at work and the possibilities of their control. It is therefore important to take their beliefs and
their concepts of a safe workplace into account. Thus interventions become less technical and much more
behavioural.
Most engineering measures are evaluated in uncontrolled before-after experiments over a short-time period.
For example technical changes on machinery to make it less noisy can be implemented. A noise
measurement before the implementation and after the implementation would convince most of us of the
effectiveness of the technical measures. In such a technical case study, it is usually clear that the technical
improvements are the only factors that have changed over the relatively short time period of follow-up such
as hours or days. These studies usually do convince that technical measures are feasible and do lead to lower
exposure. However, experiments intended to demonstrate that the measures can be implemented need to be
well-controlled and need a longer follow-up time to be convincing. In addition to the intervention, there are
always many other factors that can lead to workplace changes in companies that can easily confound the
effects of an intervention. Interventions will attract the most motivated firms to participate in the research
project and thus the results of an experiment can be easily distorted as a result of this selection bias. There
are only very few well randomised experiments of exposure reduction available and the results have been
disappointing probably because the behavioural change component of the intervention has been
underestimated.31 Also in less well-controlled implementation projects, researchers report that the results of
workplace changes are only modest.32 As part of this report, I especially looked at evidence of the
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14. effectiveness of implementation of technical measures that reduce the exposure to occupational carcinogens
in workplaces.
Pre-employment examinations can also be considered as primary preventive interventions as their objective
is to prevent that susceptible workers will be exposed. Thus this can also be called an exposure prevention
intervention. It is important to take into consideration that the benefits of pre-employment examinations
usually are not realised without the draw-back of denying employment to the prospective employee.
There is a recent systematic review of the effect of pre-employment health examinations that lists all
controlled studies that have been performed.33 I will not search for the effect of pre-employment health
examination for each exposure but I will use the results of this review.
3. Evidence of effectiveness of occupational health interventions
3.1 Interventions for decreasing inhalation exposure
Environmental interventions: substitution
Roelofs et al performed a systematic search of the occupational hygiene literature to locate articles
describing, what they call, control or prevention strategies for chemical hazards in actual workplaces.34 They
were disappointed to find, among the located 92 articles, only two that explicitly discussed the hierarchy of
controls and only four that actually compared different control strategies. They concluded that “despite their
theoretical primacy, primary prevention strategies—those focusing on reduction of hazards at the source—
are not commonly considered in practice; they ranked third in frequency of citation in the literature. And
although industrial hygienists sometimes do consider these strategies, they are not often implemented. Only
11% of the articles described the actual implementation of primary prevention strategies.
In line with their findings I could locate only one systematic review that provided evidence of effectiveness
of substitution as an intervention to decrease inhalation exposure. The effect of substitution on the very
specific exposure to latex was studied in one systematic review. The authors included eight studies of
varying methodological quality. They concluded that there is 'adequate evidence' that substitution of
powdered latex gloves with low protein powder-free natural rubber latex gloves or latex-free gloves leads to
a reduction of occupational asthma.35 Cullinan et al, in a review of asthma prevention, argue that there few
examples of the evaluation of primary prevention of asthma but those that are described as case studies
provide evidence that this is a feasible and highly effective strategy. Examples of primary prevention are the
change from the use of powder to granulated proteases in the detergent powder industry, laboratory animal
allergy and also latex allergy measures in health care.8
14

15. Environmental interventions: other control measures
The effectiveness of control measures for inhalation exposure has been studied in the occupational hygiene
literature in various ways. Researchers have tried to show the effectiveness of control measures as a generic
approach. Some researchers have tried to summarize the effectiveness of what they called -risk management
measures- based on studies that compared the exposure with and without control measures.36 Others
provided an overview of measures to control dusts especially.7 Then, there are researchers that reviewed
studies that reported trends in exposure over time and tried to relate these trends to specific interventions.37-40
However, none of them used formal systematic review techniques or techniques for meta-analysis and it is
therefore difficult to judge the value of these reviews. They neither make a distinction between studies that
measure the technical outcome versus studies that have evaluated the implementation of these technical
measures in companies. The results of these studies are summarised underneath.
Fransman et al provide an overview of the efficacy of seven broad but well defined categories of control
measures for inhalation exposure excluding substitution. They calculated with what percentage the exposure
could be reduced by various control measures: 36
- enclosure (50%, 95% Confidence Interval 4% to 74%)
o complete or partial encapsulation or encasing of the source such as lids or screens
- local exhaust ventilation (82%, 95% CI 78% to 84%)
o any kind of exhaust ventilation system close to the source with or without enclosure
- specialized ventilation systems (87%, 95% CI 73% to 94%)
o mechanical ventilation systems specifically designed to displace air in small designated
areas such as a walk-in booth or clean zone
- general ventilation (43%, 95% CI 17% to 61%)
o natural or mechanical ventilation of whole work areas such as opening windows or doors
- suppression techniques (83%, 95% CI 77% to 88%)
o the addition of an additive to an activity or process to suppress emissions such as water or oil
- segregation of sources (no studies)
o total isolation of source from the work environment such as in a special room
- separation of the worker (87% 95% CI 71% to 94%)
o worker is in a personal enclosure within the work environment
They included any kind of study that compared the exposure with and without the control measure. This
could be a cross-sectional study, a laboratory experiment or a field study to evaluate the implementation.
Efficacy was calculated as the percentage reduction of an exposure: exposure without controls minus
exposure with controls divided by exposure without controls times 100. For example the exposure without
controls is 10 mg/m3 and with controls it is 1 mg/m3. This results in a efficacy value of 90%. The results
were averaged over the various control measures to give an indication of the overall efficacy per category
and adjusted for study design, sampling strategy and measurement type.
15

16. In total they included 433 comparisons derived from 90 articles. Most comparisons (N=177) were derived
from intervention field studies and from local exhaust ventilation (N=280). The average efficacy values are
given in the table with the categories above. The results indicate that most control measures are highly
effective in reducing exposure between 80% and 90% except for enclosure and general ventilation that
reduce the exposure to a lesser degree of between 40% and 50%. The authors did not find a difference for
dusts, fumes, vapours or mists in the efficacy of the control measures.
For practical reasons the authors did not include studies on measures that changed work processes such as
substitution and neither had they included studies on respiratory protection. The authors acknowledge that
the preferred study design to evaluate the effectiveness of the control measures would be an intervention
study aimed at evaluating the implementation of the control measures. Thus the included studies can only
provide limited evidence of effectiveness. In addition, it is easily conceivable that there will be considerable
publication bias with studies of this type. Because many of the included studies are actually case studies,
authors would be reluctant to publish studies that do not show a decrease in exposure. A review of published
studies will thus mainly include studies with positive effects.
Creely et al summarized what they called trends in inhalation exposure with the aim to summarise factors
that may have been responsible for the observed changes.39 To be included papers had to describe inhalation
exposure over some time span but the authors did not specify the length of the time span. From all papers the
authors extracted or calculated the percentage decrease in exposure per year. The results were reported
according to exposures to aerosols, gases and vapours and fibers. The suggestions on the causes of the
changes by the authors of the primary papers were also reported. The results were summarised in a narrative
way and no attempt to meta-analysis was made. They included 25 papers that reported on exposure trends
and these papers included 87 separate exposure trends. One paper that reported on exposures in the American
pulp and paper industry over the time period between 1979 and 1994 contributed 36 exposures trends.41 Of
the 87 reported exposure trends, 61 were measured in the US. The authors summarise the evidence available
in these 87 trends as in the majority of instances there were significant reductions in exposure. Across studies
the average yearly decrease in exposure was - 7% ± 5% for aerosols (N=38), - 8% ± 7% for gases and
vapours (N=39) and - 15% ± 11% for fibres (N=10). From another not totally overlapping 21 papers the
authors summarised the reasons for decline or increase of exposure. Regulatory changes were mentioned
most often as the reason for decline of exposure. Other reasons were implementation of occupational health
programmes, changes in production equipment or methods and installation of control measures such as
ventilation or elimination or substitution of the source. It was not possible to make any general conclusions
about the causes of the decline.
A third paper reviewed the trends in exposure to metal working fluids. Even though this exposure is outside
the scope of this study, it provides better evidence of trends in exposure over time. The review included 48
papers on fluid aerosol measurements of metalworking-fluids over a time period ranging from 1949 to 2007.
The arithmetic mean exposure was averaged over ten year periods for 155 measurement situations with the
16

17. following result: prior to 1970 5.4 mg/m3, 1970-1980 2.5 mg/m3, 1980-1990 1.2 mg/m3, 1990-2000 0.5
mg/m3 and in 2000-2007 0.5 mg/m3. These figures show a ten-fold decrease or 90% decline in exposure
over time. These reductions in exposure are thought to be brought about by installation of aircleaners, partial
enclosure of machines and local exhaust ventilation based on better awareness of the toxicity of
metalworking fluids.40
Symanski et al also systematically reviewed exposure decline over time but did not include any reference to
the possible interventions that could have induced these declines.42 Their conclusions are in line with the
other reviews. Based on 119 published studies they calculated a yearly decline in exposure of 15% for
western Europe, of 17% for North Amerina, of 60% for Eastern Europe, of 47% for Japan but only 5% for
other countries.
I conclude that there is low quality evidence from four systematic reviews of low quality that control
measures to reduce inhalation exposure are effective. General ventilation and enclosure seem to be less
effective than other measures. Apparently through enforcement of regulation and implementation of
technical controls a general decrease in inhalation exposure has occurred in the US and other industrialised
countries in the past 30 years.
On a more technical level dust control as a form of specific inhalation exposure prevention has been
reviewed by Smandych as a generic measure to reduce exposure to dust.7 She reviewed dust control
measures both from the point of view of the dust sources and from the point of view of controlling dust in
general. Dust sources in the production process are usually related to storing, processing, packaging, feeding
or hauling. Enclosure of most of these processes is a feasible option. For general control strategies there are
dust collection systems such as local exhaust ventilation and dust suppression systems such as wet or oily
sprays. The authors conclude that most of the information is merely rule-of-thumb or general guidelines and
that more research is needed to provide a more consistent and systematic approach. A test of dustiness of
materials handled at workplaces has been developed that will help in evaluating the dustiness of material to
be used at work.43 This will help in selecting materials that are less dusty.
In addition, a wealth of studies have been published that reviewed techniques to reduce specific inhalation
exposure such as due to abrasive blasting, mortar removal, hand tools for concrete cutting, masonry cutting
and tuckpointing44-47 I will not review all these specific techniques as this is beyond the scope of this study.
These studies show that technical measures to control inhalation exposure are well known and well studied.
There were no systematic reviews of exposure reduction in welding. I found two studies that showed that
local exhaust ventilation can substantially reduce exposure to chromium and manganese in welding
processes applied in the construction industry.48;49
17

18. Environmental measures: regulation and other incentives
Torén and Sterner discussed that different regulatory strategies can lead to similar results in exposure
reduction.50 They provide some evidence from case studies in various countries that taxes, subsidies and
banning can lead to similar reduction of exposure to trichloroethylene. Elsner et al reviewed case studies of
economic incentives in various European countries and concluded that they can be an effective strategy for
improving occupational health.51 An example of successful regulation of prevention of inhalation exposure is
the case of asbestos. The use of asbestos in production processes has been successfully banned from most
industrialized countries where exposure to asbestos nowadays mainly occurs in construction workers during
demolition and renovation of buildings. Recently, the Collegium Ramazzini group has renewed their call for
a universal ban on the mining and use of all forms of asbestos.52 One of the main arguments for a ban is that
it is impossible to control the use of asbestos to ensure that no health hazards will occur.53
Even though good systematic reviews are missing in this area, it seems that regulation and economic
incentives can both lead to substantial reduction of exposure.
Behavioural: respiratory protection for preventing inhalation exposure
For respiratory protection, the same holds as for technical control measures in general. The effectiveness of
respiratory protection is the result of the interaction of proper design and manufacturing ('proper
functioning') and actual fit, maintenance and cleaning and proper use by the wearer in workplace practice
('proper use') as Brouwer et al put it.54 Thus, results of laboratory testing and technical features of the devices
never hold under practical circumstances. The protection factor of respiratory protection has been shown to
decrease with a factor 450 between simulated and real workplace testing.55 In addition, it is clear that without
proper instruction and training in its use, the exposure reduction will be even worse.56 Practical features
make the use of respiratory protection difficult. If the wearer has a beard, the protective properties of
respiratory protection will be lost.55 Brouwer et al propose that for personal protective equipment that has
been shown to be functioning properly additional criteria for its proper use should be adopted. These criteria
are: awareness of the need to use the personal protective equipment, instruction and training, ability to
perform work tasks with the protective equipment and acceptability based on discomfort rating.54
There are no systematic reviews that have looked at the effectiveness of respiratory protection under field
circumstances. In none of the reviews of exposure trends over time the effects of respiratory protection have
been taken into account. Given all the practical constraints for proper use, it seems unlikely that respiratory
protection can be an effective measure of control of inhalation exposure in low and middle income countries.
Clinical: pre-employment examinations and drugs
The effectiveness of pre-employment examinations has been debated for a long time.57 Most authors have
argued against the effectiveness of pre-employment examinations for the following reasons. Pre-employment
testing is basically a form of screening by which prospective job applicants are tested for personal risk
18

19. factors that make them more vulnerable to the exposure of the prospective job. For those who test positive an
intervention should be applied to eliminate the risk. Most research has focussed on the tests that are applied
in pre-employment examinations. Authors have argued that the tests are not specific enough and label many
job applicants as being at risk while in reality they are not. In epidemiological terms, the tests yield too many
false positives. Denying the job to the worker who tests positive is the most frequently applied intervention.
This means that those who are false positive are wrongfully denied access to work. Based on modelling
studies, authors have argued that the costs of wrongfully denying work to those who are false positives far
outweighs the benefits of preventing occupational diseases in those who are correctly classified as being at
risk.58-60 However, there are no studies that have conducted a proper economic evaluation. There are also no
studies that have followed the job applicants after they were rejected based on the pre-employment
examinations.
Evaluating the effectiveness of screening procedures is complicated because the outcome depends both on
the quality of the diagnostic tests involved and the effectiveness of the intervention. Screening can be
evaluated by comparing the whole screening procedure including the interventions to a control condition
without the procedure. An alternative evaluation procedure is to study the effectiveness of the interventions
only in candidates who screen positive as the interventions' effectiveness is the most important part of the
procedure. There are basically three different interventions that can be applied to job applicants that have a
risk factor: they can be denied the job they are applying for, the prospective workplace can be
accommodated to their risks or the job applicant can be trained so that they are no longer at risk.
There is only one Cochrane systematic review that has looked at controlled studies that have evaluated the
effectiveness of pre-employment examinations.33 In this review, nine studies were included. Seven evaluated
introduction of pre-employment examinations versus no pre-employment examinations. One of these seven
studies was about the prevention of occupational asthma. Incorporating a bronchial challenge test for
workers in the aluminium industry decreased the number of cases of occupational asthma over time in an
interrupted time series compared to the time period when pre-employment examinations were used without
these tests.
Prevention of work-related cancer can theoretically also be achieved through vitamins such as beta-carotene,
which could be prescribed for people at risk. There is also a Cochrane Review that concludes that there is
currently no evidence to support recommending vitamins such as alpha-tocopherol, beta-carotene or retinol,
alone or in combination, to prevent lung cancer. On the contrary, a harmful effect was found for beta-
carotene with retinol at pharmacological doses in people with risk factors for lung cancer (smoking and/or
occupational exposure to asbestos).61
3.2 Interventions for decreasing exposure to noise
19

20. Environmental interventions
I found one systematic review of interventions to reduce exposure to noise.62 The authors found evaluations
of the effects of the following interventions:
- the effect of the introduction of legislation on noise levels (1 study)
- the long term effect of hearing loss prevention programmes in companies on hearing loss (14 studies)
- the short term effect of hearing protection on temporary hearing loss or noise exposure (6 studies)
The one study that examined the effect of new legislation in reducing noise exposure measured the impact
during 18 consecutive years in the mining industry in the US, either side of the implementation of legislation.
It found that the median noise level decreased by 28 decibels immediately after the introduction of
legislation.
The effectiveness of the hearing loss prevention programmes in companies was evaluated by comparing
hearing loss in workers that were exposed to noise but who were protected through a hearing-loss prevention
programme with the natural hearing loss in workers that were not exposed to noise. The studies produced
mixed findings and, in some, workers who were protected from noise still had three to four times the risk of
hearing impairment compared to similar people not exposed to noise in the first place. In three
implementation studies, better quality hearing loss prevention programmes were shown to have a
significantly lower risk of hearing loss than lower quality programmes. Most of the hearing loss prevention
programmes were from the US or older studies that consisted mainly of instruction to workers to wear
hearing protection, even though some studies also included engineering controls.
The studies on the short-term effects of hearing protectors showed that these can reduce noise levels
sufficiently. An important factor is that the hearing protectors have to be worn properly. For example,
workers need instruction for the insertion of hearing plugs to make these sufficiently protective.
The authors concluded that there is low quality evidence that legislation can reduce noise levels in
workplaces but contradictory evidence that prevention programmes are effective in the long-term. Even
though case studies show that substantial noise reductions can be achieved, there is no evidence that this is
realised in practice. It is concluded that better implementation and reinforcement of legislation and hearing
loss prevention programmes is needed if people’s hearing is to be better protected.
Behavioural interventions: promotion of hearing protection
In addition to this review, there is one other Cochrane systematic review on interventions to enhance the use
of hearing protection.63 In this review, three studies were included that reported on the primary outcome
measure that was the proportion of participants wearing hearing protection. One study was a cluster
randomised trial of 17 schools for vocational training in farm work with 3 years follow-up. The participants
at the intervention schools (N=375) received a hearing test and an extensive educational intervention
whereas the participants at the control schools (N=378) received only a hearing test. The percentage of pupils
20

21. that reported wearing hearing protection 'at least sometimes' increased from 23% to 83% at the end of
follow-up whereas these figures for the control group were 24% and 35% respectively. Another study among
automotive workers (N= 1325) exposed to on average 90 dB(A) evaluated the effect of a computer
generated message that was tailored according to the amount of hearing loss and to the individual predictors
of the likelihood of wearing hearing protection. This tailored message was compared to general information
and to a control condition where workers saw a commercial video on hearing loss prevention. In a follow-up
of the same study the workers were again randomised to receive a booster message sent to their private
addresses after one and three months after the first message. In the third study, the same tailored intervention
was evaluated in a different population. The tailored message resulted in an increase of 6% of the self-
reported amount of time that hearing protection was worn in both studies compared to either the non-tailored
intervention or the control condition. The other studies in the review did not report on the primary outcome.
The authors conclude that there is evidence from one study that school-based interventions can be effective
and that messages tailored to the needs of the individual can be more effective than general messages.
Clinical interventions
As mentioned before, there are no reliable tests to detect those that are sensitive to noise that could be used in
a pre-employment examination. Neither did I find studies that used pre-employment examinations as an
intervention to reduce noise-induced hearing loss.
Even though magnesium has been used as a drug to prevent hearing loss among those exposed to noise, there
are no systematic studies that have reviewed its effectiveness.
A conclusion similar to that on prevention of inhalation exposure applies to reduction of noise exposure.
Technical solutions for decreasing noise levels are feasible, tested and available. There is low quality
evidence from a high quality review that legislation can help implementing these interventions, which leads
to lower noise levels. There is contradictory evidence that noise-induced hearing loss decreases as a result of
hearing loss prevention programmes. Hearing protection can adequately reduce exposure but needs
educational or behavioural interventions to be properly implemented to levels that protect workers
adequately. There is low quality evidence that educational programmes at school or messages tailored to the
needs of the individual can increase implementation but it is unclear if this leads to sufficient protection.
3.3 Interventions for decreasing biomechanical exposure
Control of biomechanical exposure can be either directed at worker behaviour such as better lifting
techniques or at the workplace such as decreasing the loads to be lifted or improving the position in which
the work has to be done. It is surprising how few studies have been conducted in this area.
21

22. Environmental interventions: load reduction and ergonomics
With biomechanical exposure it is not always easy to make a distinction between environmental and
behavioural interventions. Ergonomic interventions usually require some kind of human participation but it
is possible to reduce exposure without human interference for example by reducing the weight that has to be
lifted. In that sense, the American National Institute of OSH (NIOSH) has presented a valuable exposure
limit as a means to try to reduce spinal load at work. This consists of a relatively simple assessment tool that
can be used to assess a recommended weight limit. The maximum recommended weight limit is 23 kg. The
lifting conditions, such as distance of the load to the body and the degree of trunk rotation have to be
specified and entered into a formula which returns a recommended weight limit for these conditions.64 Even
though this is a practical approach that in theory should be able to reduce spinal load, there are no controlled
studies that have evaluated if using such an exposure limit prevents back pain.
The effectiveness of participatory ergonomic interventions on health outcomes has been reviewed by Rivilis
et al 65 earlier published as Cole 2005. The implementation of this type of interventions thus requires active
participation of workers. This review included seven studies that evaluated the effect of ergonomic
interventions on musculoskeletal disorder symptoms. Three of these were RCTs. The highest quality study
showed similar symptom levels in the intervention group as in the control group after 10 months follow-up.
The other two studies found little change. Of the non-randomised studies, two found a positive result and two
found a non-significant result for back symptoms. Even though the authors conclude that this is moderate
evidence that participatory interventions have a positive impact on musculoskeletal disorder symptoms, the
review does not provide evidence that back pain can be prevented by ergonomic interventions.
A more recent review of ergonomic interventions (physical and organisational) to prevent back pain in
workers included 10 RCTs. There was low to moderate quality evidence that physical and organisational
ergonomic interventions were not more effective than no ergonomic intervention on short and long term back
pain incidence/prevalence and short and long term back pain intensity.66 The same authors found a similar
result in a cluster randomised trial that they conducted as a result of their review.67
Behavioural interventions: education and training
Since long it has been assumed that there is a correct lifting posture that decreases biomechanical load on the
lumbar spine. There is however no consensus in the biomechanical literature what this correct lifting posture
is.12 Based on these assumptions, there has been considerable effort invested in interventions to make
workers change their lifting behaviour. These efforts have been especially concentrated in occupations such
as nursing in which it is difficult to change the load because this is inherent to the task of lifting patients. In
one older review on prevention of back pain in general, Van Poppel et al found 11 trials.68 There were six
RCTs that evaluated education but it was concluded that these contained no evidence of a preventive effect
of education.
22

23. Since then, several reviews have addressed the effectiveness of manual material handling advice to prevent
back pain.69-72 They are mostly based on the same studies and all conclude that manual handling training is
largely ineffective in reducing back pain or back injury.
Verbeek et al recently updated the review of Martimo et al of advice and training for manual material
handling to prevent back pain.73 The authors included in this updated review ten RCTs with 20.152
employees and eight cohort studies with 1176 employees. All studies focused on prevention of back pain.
Ten studies compared some kind of training to no intervention (4), a minor intervention (3), back belt use (1)
or exercise (1) and one study compared training plus lifting aids to training only or no intervention. The
intensity of training ranged from a single educational session to very extensive personal biofeedback of the
load on the lumbar spine. None of the included studies showed evidence of a preventive effect of training on
back pain. Based on seven RCTs, there was moderate quality evidence that training resulted in similar back
pain as no intervention with an odds ratio of 1.17 (95% Confidence IntervaI 0.68 to 2.02) and as minor
advice with an odds ratio of 0.93 (95% CI 0.69 to 1.25). The results of the cohort studies were similar to
those of the randomised studies. The authors conclude that there is moderate quality evidence that MMH
advice and training with or without assistive devices do not prevent back pain or back pain-related disability
when compared to no intervention or alternative interventions.
Clinical interventions: pre-employment examinations
The same Cochrane review on pre-employment examinations as mentioned before included three studies that
used a functional capacity evaluation test in workers with high physical work load to prevent
musculoskeletal injuries including back pain. The studies led to contradictory results with one study resulting
in less musculoskeletal disorders and two studies that did not lead to a decrease. All studies led to an increase
in rejected applicants. Moreover, if there are benefits, it remains to be seen if these outweigh the increase of
rejected job applicants.33 The very low quality of the evidence implies that future research could easily
change these conclusions.
3.4 Interventions for prevention of injuries
A major problem in injury prevention research is that injuries are a relatively infrequent event in most
workplaces. For evaluation research this means that studies are easily underpowered to find differences
between intervention and control group. Therefore one has to be cautious to not interpret this as interventions
not being effective.
Environmental interventions
There were no studies that systematically looked at environmental interventions such as guarding to prevent
entanglement in machines or preventing falls from roofs. Hsiao and Simeonov reviewed the literature on fall
prevention but they did so more from a theoretical point of view than as a review of prevention effectiveness
23

24. studies.74 Falls from roofs are one of the main causes of work-related fatalities in the construction industry
and thus an important focus for prevention. Most measures for preventing falls focus on how to mitigate the
results once the fall is happening already such as using safety belts and guards. In line with the Haddon-
matrix, the authors postulate that control of balance is the most important factor in the pre-event phase. They
reviewed which factors can improve control of balance to prevent falls from roofs. They found evidence that
visual and physical interaction with the environment, tasks such handling loads and personal factors such as
work experience and training are the main determinants of control of balance at heights. Visual interaction
can be improved for example by providing visual anchors or colour cues to improve depth perception.
Physical interaction with the environment can be improved by extending the surfaces on which a worker
stands, providing slide guards, increasing surface frictional properties, evenness and removing obstacles.
Task related factors such as load handling, fatigue and task complexity can be improved to prevent falls from
roofs. Personal factors that can be improved were training and personal protective equipment. There were no
intervention or evaluation studies that could support the suggestions for primary prevention of fall injuries.
Tompa et al reviewed the effectiveness of 'prevention incentives' used by insurance and in regulation.75 I
regarded this as implementation measures to get environmental interventions in place to prevent occupational
injuries. He discerns two approaches to induce the desired preventive behaviour: experience ratings of
insurance premiums and enforcement of occupational health regulation. Experience rating is the insurance
practice where premiums are reduced if you make fewer claims. They included all studies that evaluated one
of these interventions, were quantitative and had used a longitudinal design. Based on the quality and the
outcome of the studies they rated the available evidence as strong, moderate, limited, no or mixed.
For experience rating they found moderate evidence that both the introduction of experience rating and the
degree of experience rating led to a decrease in injuries.
There were only two studies that evaluated the introduction of occupational health regulation which led to a
conclusion of mixed evidence for its effectiveness. Enforcement of occupational health regulation was
measured in various ways. Inspections were evaluated in 18 studies and the authors concluded that there was
limited evidence that inspections were associated with a reduction in injury frequency or severity. The 11
studies that evaluated both the effect of inspections and the probability of a penalty showed mixed results.
The other seven studies that evaluated the effect of an actual penalty showed strong evidence that this
resulted in a lowering of the injury rate. The authors warn for the possibility that regulation and experience
rating can give rise to so-called perverse incentives meaning that the incentive can also induce undesired
behaviour such as not reporting injuries anymore to be able to receive a lower premium or to prevent a
penalty.
It has been shown that there is a strong relationship between safety climate in a company and the injury rate.
Safety climate is defined as a specification of organisational climate that in turn is made up of shared
perceptions among employees concerning procedures, practices and kinds of behaviours that get rewarded
and supported with regard to a specific strategic focus. When the strategic focus involves performance of
24

25. high risk operations, the resultant shared perceptions define safety climate.76 The topic has been extensively
reviewed by Zohar but at the moment there is no empirical evidence on how to affect safety climate such that
it would help in reducing injuries.
Prevention of injuries in agriculture and construction industry
Another approach to injury prevention evaluation is to look at a whole branch of industry. Branches of
industry that are important to our topic are agriculture and construction industry.
An older review on injury prevention in agriculture by de Roo et al concluded in 2000 that there was little
evidence that farm safety interventions were effective.77 Recently, this review has been updated in a
Cochrane Review.78 Five RCTs and three interrupted time-series (ITS) met the inclusion criteria. Five studies
evaluated educational interventions, one study financial incentives and two studies evaluated the effect of
regulation, one of regulating tractor roll-over protection structures and one banning of pesticides.
Three RCTs with 4670 adult participants evaluated safety training and education. These studies did not find
an effect on injury rates (Rate Ratio 1.02 (95% confidence interval 0.87 to 1.20)) Another two RCTs did not
find an effect of safety training among children.
Financial incentives decreased the injury level immediately after the intervention in one ITS. Legislation
requiring rollover protective structures (ROPS) on new tractors was associated with a decrease in fatal
injuries but the same requirement for existing tractors showed no effect.
Hartling et al performed a review of interventions to prevent specifically childhood farm injuries.79 They
included 23 controlled studies of which four randomized. All interventions were educational in nature. Even
though school-based programs and safety day camps appeared to be effective at increasing short-term
knowledge acquisition, other interventions showed mixed results and no studies showed an actual reduction
in injuries.79
Another Cochrane Review gathered evidence on safety interventions in the construction industry.20 Here, the
authors found five interrupted time-series studies that met their inclusion criteria. Three studies evaluated the
effect of regulations, one evaluated a safety campaign, and one a drug-free workplace program on fatal or
non-fatal injuries compared to no drug-free workplace program. The overall methodological quality was low.
The three studies that evaluated regulatory interventions did not show either an initial or sustained effect on
fatal or non-fatal injuries, with effect sizes (ES) of 0.69 (95% confidence interval (CI) -1.70 to 3.09) and 0.28
(95% CI 0.05 to 0.51).
The safety campaign, which consisted of several methods aimed at preventing injuries, reduced non-fatal
injuries significantly both immediately (ES -1.82 (95% CI -2.90 to -0.75)) and in the long run (ES -1.30
(95% CI -1.79 to -0.80)). Also the drug-free workplace program had an initial and sustained effect, reducing
non-fatal injuries compared to no intervention (ES -6.74 (95% CI -10.02 to -3.54) and -1.76 (95% CI -3.11 to
-0.41)).
25

26. The authors concluded that the vast majority of technical, human factors and organisational interventions
which are recommended by standard texts of safety, consultants and safety courses, have not been adequately
evaluated. There is no evidence that regulations for reducing fatal and non-fatal injuries are effective. There
is limited evidence that a multifaceted safety campaign and a multifaceted drug program can reduce non-fatal
injuries in the construction industry.
Behavioural interventions: Occupational Safety Training
Education and training to increase knowledge and model safe behaviour have long been the mainstay of
injury prevention. An extensive review of the literature from 1980 to 1996 by NIOSH in 1998 categorised
training as more narrow instruction whereas education was defined as broader instruction.80 The authors also
categorised occupational health training and education into four different programme types with increasing
assumed effectiveness: fundamental training aimed at instruction of proper work practices and use of
personal protective equipment, recognition programmes aiming at hazard recognition and control, problem-
solving programmes and empowerment programmes that go beyond just problem-solving but use a total
quality management approach. They divided the literature further into training that aimed at reducing injury-
producing forces, toxic chemicals or materials, harmful physical agents, ergonomic stressors, biologic or
infectious agents. Here, I present only the results of training aimed at reducing injury-producing forces. All
together, they found 80 studies that evaluated some kind of training intervention. These studies used either
satisfaction, knowledge, behaviour or injuries as the outcome by which the effectiveness was judged. Of
these 80 studies, 21 studies aimed at injury prevention but only 14 used some kind of control group. The
following results were reported. Four studies reported a reduction of injuries and one study reported no
effect. Seven studies reported objective behaviour change and one no effect. The other studies measured only
knowledge or satisfaction. The authors conclude that there was "much direct and indirect evidence to show
the benefits of training in establishing safe and healthful working conditions. The intervention studies in
particular were especially supportive. Findings here were near unanimous in showing how training can attain
objectives such as increased hazard awareness among the workers at risk, knowledge of and adoption of safe
work practices, and other actions that improve workplace safety and health protection." The review did not
take into account possible biases such as publication bias and the quality of included studies. It is unsure if
the same conclusions would be drawn with current systematic review standards.
More recently Burke et al reviewed the effectiveness of occupational health training with the specific
objective to see if training that engaged workers more was more effective than training in which workers
were less engaged 81. They used a meta-analytic approach mostly used in psychology and grouped all types
of training programmes together but looked separately at knowledge, performance and injury outcomes. To
be included in the review, studies had to compare the intervention with a control group. They found 95
studies of which 31 evaluated the effect on injuries. The authors did not mention an overall outcome of their
review but only reported that the pooled effect sizes significantly increased from least engaging to
26

27. moderately engaging to most engaging training programmes for knowledge, and injury outcomes but not so
for behavioural outcomes. The latter non-significant result is explained by confounding as the level of
engagement was also related to the complexity of the behaviours that had to be improved. The more complex
tasks involved more worker engagement but were at the same time more difficult to change. The authors
took methodological quality partly into account but not publication bias.
In 2010 a group of researchers from the Canadian Institute of Work and Health and NIOSH updated the
NIOSH review with better methodology and newer studies.82 They were interested only in randomised
controlled trials and found 22 of these but included in the review only 14 which were judged as of sufficient
quality. They categorized interventions as low, medium or high worker engagement and they categorised
outcomes as knowledge, attitudes and beliefs, behaviours and health-outcomes. Based on the quality and the
effect size of studies in a category, evidence for effectiveness was assessed as strong, sufficient or
insufficient. There were only four studies with six interventions which fulfilled the inclusion criteria and
which aimed at reducing safety outcomes. Only two of these measured health/injury outcomes and both had
a non-significant outcome. The authors did not look at separate outcomes but combined all studies. They
concluded that there was insufficient evidence that knowledge was increased by training, strong evidence
that behaviour improved and again insufficient evidence that health outcomes improved. This somewhat
contradictory result is due to the lack of high quality studies in the knowledge domain even though the effect
size was large. The authors concluded also that there was insufficient evidence for a greater effect of training
with higher worker engagement.
Behavioural safety interventions: feedback and rewards
Wirth and Sigurdsson provided an overview of behavioural safety research without pretending that the
overview is systematic.83 The approach is based on behavioural psychology and applied already in the 1930s.
They defined behavioural safety as "an approach designed to change safety-related behaviours directly
through the application of behavioural principles and multiple strategies such as peer observations of safe
behaviours, goal setting, performance feedback and celebrations or incentives for safety goals." They see this
as an additional approach to engineering controls. They found that evidence of effectiveness is mostly
missing but that many of the intervention ideas are useful and should be better evaluated. The authors
stressed the importance of feedback and incentives such as rewards and celebrations because they are an
important feature of behavioural psychology. The idea is that reinforcement is "a basic learning process that
occurs when a behavioural consequence increases the frequency, intensity or duration of the targeted
behaviour".
In an older review of the use of incentives and feedback to enhance workplace safety, McAfee and Winn
aptly summarised 24 studies mostly carried out in the 1970s and 1980s.84 They included studies if they had
used an incentive intervention, a before-after outcome measurement and reported quantitative data. Most
27

28. studies were based on the principle that rewarded behaviour is likely to be repeated. The types of
interventions used were monetary incentives, praise and feedback and team competitions. The authors found
that all studies reported positive results in terms of a reduction of injuries in eight studies or an increase of
safety behaviour in the other 14 studies at least in the short term. One study reported that a reward system
still improved safety after having been in place for 12 years. Based on the results of their review they find it
impossible to tell which incentives were the best and they argue that better studies are needed to inform
practice.
Clinical: Pre-employment examinations for preventing injuries
The Cochrane review on pre-employment examinations used earlier, included two studies that aimed at
preventing injuries. Based on the results of the pre-employment examinations, the studies divided job
applicants in a group that were judged to be at risk and in a group that were not at risk.33 In one study, the
applicants that were at risk were provided with work accommodations. After one year of follow-up, the
injury rate in the group with work accommodations was similar to the group of job applicants that were
considered to be not at risk. This was taken as evidence of effectiveness of a beneficial effect of pre-
employment examinations and work-accommodations. In another study in the military, a training programme
was offered to those that were judged to be not physically fit enough to endure military training without
sustaining injuries. At the end of follow-up the injury rate in those who received training was similar to those
who were judged not to be at risk. Also in this study, this was taken as evidence that the pre-employment
examination with the training intervention was effective in reducing injuries in those at risk.
However, the confidence intervals around the risk estimates were wide and included also a substantial higher
risk for those that were provided with workplace accommodations and training. Even though these studies
provide some evidence that work-accommodation and training can be effective interventions with pre-
employment examinations, the quality of the evidence was assessed as very low.
3.5. Approaches to Small Enterprises
Small enterprises form the majority of companies and a considerable part of workers are employed by small
companies. Small enterprises differ from bigger enterprises in that they are usually led by the owner who has
to handle all the management tasks. Halse and Limborg describe that the owner is usually suspicious about
regulation and external consultants.23 The amount of resources that small companies are able and willing to
devote to occupational safety and health is usually limited. In addition, injuries and accidents occur rather
infrequently which easily leads to an ad-hoc approach in safety matters. The authors describe two approaches
to meet the specific needs of small firms. One is to develop specific tools such as predefined checklists for
risk assessment for specific types of firms. The other one is to work with intermediary organisations that
support small enterprises such as labour unions, insurance companies or occupational health services. The
authors acknowledge that none of these methods is based on thorough evaluation studies.
28

29. Brooke advocates a specific hazards-scheme approach towards the occupational health problems of small
firms to control health risks from chemicals.85 Their approach is very similar to control-banding and also
based on the idea that it is much easier to work with hazard bands than to measure all exposures. They
propose to create the hazard bands based on the R-phrases that are required based on EU-regulation. An
evaluation of the hazard scheme to occupational exposure limits showed that the scheme is a potentially
powerful tool for helping SMEs to control chemical risks. However, there is no evaluation that shows if risks
in practice are more effectively controlled using the hazard-scheme.
One systematic review focussed entirely on safety interventions for businesses with less than 100 employees.
The review included five studies that covered a wide range of varying interventions. The interventions were
found to be effective in increasing safety-related attitudes and beliefs but had mixed effects on exposure and
no effect on health outcomes. It was difficult to draw conclusions that were specific for small firms from this
review.86
4. Conclusions and discussion
Table 2 summarises the evidence that I found for the effectiveness of essential primary preventive
occupational safety and health interventions. The general conclusions are that there is evidence from
systematic reviews that:
- many technical interventions for inhalation exposure reduction are effective and do not necessarily
have to be costly and can be based on simplified exposure assessments such as control-banding
- there is indirect evidence that shows that specific ventilation controls are better than general controls
- regulation and incentives for employers are probably one of the main causes of inhalation exposure
reduction in the industrialised world in the past forty years. It is therefore concluded that regulation
and incentives are effective in implementing technical exposure controls in firms.
- personal protective equipment can reduce exposure in a technical sense but there are many practical
barriers that impede its effectiveness in practice
- personal protective equipment is not a reliable tool without proper instruction and adaptation. This
holds for both respiratory and for hearing protection equipment
- that pre-employment examinations might prevent occupational asthma for specific exposures, even
though the quality of the evidence is very low
- regulation and enforcement can reduce noise levels in workplaces
- hearing loss prevention programmes that are mainly based on hearing protection are probably not
sufficiently protective even though the quality of the evidence is low
- there is no evidence in the available studies that back pain can be prevented neither by training and
education nor by ergonomic improvements nor by pre-employment examinations
- technical passive hazard controls such as roll-over protection structures on tractors can reduce fatal
injuries but for most technical controls there are no studies or no systematic reviews
- regulation and incentives for employers for reducing injuries produce mixed results but there are no
systematic reviews of measures to improve the safety climate in a company
29

30. - incentives such as feedback and rewards for workers improve safety behaviour and probably reduce
injuries
- education and training to prevent injuries produces mixed results with some reviews providing
evidence of effectiveness but with other reviews not providing such evidence.
- pre-employment examinations which lead to work accommodations or extra training might lead to
lower injury rates
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31. Table 2: Overview of preventive occupational health interventions and the evidence for their effectiveness
Work-related Risk factors to be Types of interventions
disorder to be addressed
prevented
Engineering Behavioural Clinical
Substitution / Isolation- PPE Education/ Other behavioural Scheduling/ Other
ventilation Training interventions Health Exam Clinical
Cancer Asbestos, Technical measures: Respiratory protection OSH training: Worker Incentives: - pre- Medication
Silica, - Substitution ± - Technical see injuries 0/± see injuries ± employment to prevent
Coal dust, Inhalation- - Enclosure + properties + examinations cancer: 0
Asthma Welding exposure - LEV ++ - Implementation ? ±
fumes Prevention - Special
HMW ventilation ++
COPD Biological - General
agents ventilation +
LMW - Suppression ++
Chemical - Separation ++
agents
Non- Implementation measures
specific - regulation +
dusts and - incentives ±
fumes
Noise- Sound levels above 80 Technical measures ++ Hearing Protection Instruction Worker Incentives: Pre- Magnesium
induced dB(A) Implementation measures Technical properties hearing protection see injuries ± employment ?
Hearing Loss - Regulation + - without instruction ++ exam 0
- Incentives ? ± General see
- with instruction injuries ±
+++
implementation
- school-based +
- work-based ±
Back Pain Ergonomic risk factors: Technical measures ± Aids Instruction Incentives ? Pre-
manual material handling, Implementation / Technical properties ? manual material employment
bending and twisting, Ergonomics 0 Implementation 0 handling / lifting 0
heavy physical load, Lifting maximum ? 0
static work posture,
6. Injury Hazardous situations at Technical measures Technical measures ? Education/training Worker Incentives Pre- NA
Prevention work - Fall Prevention + Implementation ? 0/± - monetary + employment
- Roll-over Education - praise and ±
31