INDUSTRIAL HYGIENE

Definition of
Occupational / Industrial Hygiene

• Definition 1 (International Occupational

Hygiene Association By-laws – IOHA)

“ Occupational Hygiene is the discipline of anticipating,

recognizing, evaluating and controlling health hazards
in the working environment with the objective of
protecting worker health and well-being and
safeguarding the community at large.”

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Definition of Industrial Hygiene

• Definition 2 (American Industrial Hygiene

Association - AIHA)
• “That science and art devoted to the anticipation,
recognition, evaluation, and control of those
environmental factors and stresses arising in or from
the workplace, which may cause sickness, impaired
health and well-being, or significant discomfort
among workers or among citizens of the community”

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 Definitions – Industrial
Hygiene
IOHA
Occupational Hygiene is the
discipline of anticipating,
recognizing, evaluating and
controlling health hazards in the
working environment with the
objective of protecting worker
health and well-being and
safeguarding the community at
large.”
AIHA
Industrial Hygiene is “That science
and art devoted to the anticipation,
recognition, evaluation, and control of
those environmental factors and
stresses arising in or from the
workplace, which may cause sickness,
impaired health and well-being, or
significant discomfort among workers
or among citizens of the community”
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 What is the difference between
Industrial hygiene and
Occupational hygiene?
• The term Industrial Hygiene originated in the USA while in other parts of
the world it is known as Occupational Hygiene.

• In some ways the term Occupational is a better description as health

risks occur in all places that people work such as offices, shops,
hospitals and farms, not just in places you would think of
as industrial.

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 Who is an Industrial Hygienist

• A person having a college or university degree (s) in

engineering, chemistry, physics, medicine or related
physical and biological sciences, who has also
received specialised training in recognition, evaluation,
and control of workplace stressors and therefore
achieved competence in industrial hygiene.

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 Basic Principles of
Industrial Hygiene
1. Anticipation of potential health risks
2. Recognition of existing health hazards at the
workplace
3. Evaluation of health risks
4. Control of unacceptable risks

Remember the acronym: A.R.E.C.

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Anticipation of potential risks

• Best done –
❒ in the design stage of a process or equipment or
❒ at the formulation stage of a new substance or
chemical

Advantage: Eliminate the need for review or

redesigning, thus save high costs.

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Anticipation of potential risks

• Basic information to consider:

❒ Characteristics of the process or equipment
❒ Physical and chemical properties of the formulation
❒ Adverse health effects from past experience and
reported cases of occupational diseases and
poisoning

• The process of anticipation is not easy and requires vast

experience. Need to engage the assistance of experts
such as the industrial hygiene practitioner, toxicologist
and occupational health doctor.

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Recognition of Health Hazards

• This may be achieved through –

a. Workplace inspection
i. Look at workplace environment, work processes,
types of materials & equipmentused;
ii. Observe workers at work

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Recognition of Health Hazards
b. Health surveillance and area
monitoring
c. Workers health records
d. Review of past Incident investigation reports.
e. Discussion with the management and workers

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Harmful Factors that exist at the Workplace
• Many workers may be exposed to a number of
health hazards at work.
• Hazard recognition :
– Identifying factors or work processes that
may be harmful to health.
– Knowledge of the physicochemical properties
of a material/ substance, its harmful effects to
health and identification techniques are
essential.
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Health Hazards encountered at Work

1. Chemical Substances

2. Physical agents.

3. Biological agents

4. Ergonomics

5. Psychological factors.
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 Chemical Hazards

• Hazards – risks are associated with the use of chemicals.

• Hazardous chemicals may cause –
✓ Fire & Explosion Forms of Chemicals
✓ Adverse health effects • Dust,
• Particles and smoke
✓ Damage to the environment
• Liquid and mists
• Gas and vapour

Common Types
1. Solvents
2. Metals
3. Acids and Bases
4. Pesticides

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 Physical Hazards

Excessive exposure to the following physical

hazards may cause harm to our health –
✓ Noise
✓ Vibration
✓ Ionising radiation
▪ Cosmic rays – gamma, alpha, Beta and X-rays;
▪ soil/rock radioactive elements– uranium, thorium, radium,
potassium-40;
▪ Man-made nuclear radiation
✓ Non-ionising radiation
▪ UV, Infrared, microwave, laser.
✓ Lighting
✓ Extremely high/low temperature
✓ Extremely high/low air pressure

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 Biological Hazards
• Micro organisms
– Bacteria, viruses and Parasites.
– The virus of contagious diseases may spread

•
through its vectors.
•
Toxins (spider, snake, scorpion, jellyfish,
wasp) Plants (fungi, yeast, cotton dusts)

Bacteria Anthrax, legionnaire’s disease, botulism, E.Coli,

salmonella

Viruses H5N1(Avian Flu), SARS, HIV, mumps, Dengue fever.

Hepatitis A/B/C , Variecella(chickenpox)

Fungi Poisonous mushrooms

- Amanita virosa (DestroyingAngel),
– Amanita phalloides (Death Cap)

Parasites Malaria, mites, leeches, intestinal worms

 Ergonomic Hazards

Musculoskeletal disorders affecting workers may

arise from unsuitable work conditions or physical incapacity to
carry out their assignedtasks.

1. Awkward body postures

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 Ergonomic Hazards
Examples of unsuitable work conditions or physicalincapacity:

2. Manual lifting of heavy loads

3. Repetitive hand Movements

4 Poor lightning and cramp work place

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 Psychological hazards

Tensions at the workplace may disturb the concentration

and mental health of the worker

Examples of Tensions at the workplace

✓ Monotonous work
✓ Excessive workload and overtime
✓ Poor work relationships with colleagues and
supervisors
✓ Shift work
✓ Remuneration and annual leave issues
✓ Sexual Harassment

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 Objectives of Risk Evaluation (Assessment)

• To determine the level of worker exposure (high, medium or

low) to health hazards and the effectiveness of the existing
control measures, and their relationship to the risk of disease.
• To enable decisions to be made on additional control measures
to bring the health risks down to within PEL (Permissible
Exposure Limit).
– e.g. engineering control to reduce airborne contaminants, worker
training, health surveillance.

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Risk Evaluation – what to look at?

Risk = Hazard x Exposure

Hazard Component
= Magnitude of hazard and the potential adverse health effects from
possible routes of entry or contact.

Exposure Component
= Chances of overexposure occurring by taking into account:

i. Characteristics of exposure
ii. Level of exposure

Risk Conclusion – takes into account the work practices and

personal factors including individual susceptibility.

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 Risk Evaluation

(i) Characteristics of exposure

✓ Who are exposed (based on Job types and tasks
performed)?
✓ How many are exposed?
✓ What are they exposed to?

✓
How are they exposed?
€ Inhalation
€ SkinAbsorption
€ Ingestion

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 Risk Evaluation
(ii) Level of Exposure
• Frequency of exposure
– daily, weekly, monthly?

• Duration of exposure
– by seconds, minutes, hours?

• Intensity of exposure
– high, medium, low?

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 Risk Evaluation
(ii) Level of Exposure (Quantification/Quality)
– Exposure intensity - Quantitative
• Using equipment to measure the intensity or
magnitude of exposure

– Exposure intensity - Qualitative

• Using observation and
professional opinion

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 Risk Conclusion
• Risk conclusion is made after taking into
account

i. Level of risk exposure (high, medium or low)

based on qualitative or quantitative assessment and
rated against the Industry accepted Permissible
Exposure Limits.
ii. The work practices, and personal factors
(including individual susceptibility)
ii. The adequacy of existing controlmeasures

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Control of Health Risks

Principle of Risk Control

• Prioritise the control measures at the source, not the
worker
• Prioritise the elimination of hazards, not the
reduction of exposure
• Controls should target below the permissible
exposure limits
• Controls should be as low as reasonably practicable,
especially in cases where there is no data on the
permissible exposure limit
• Use of personal protective equipment (PPE) is a last
resort

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Principle of Risk Control

1.Prioritise the control measures at the

source, not the worker
❒ Controlled source means –
€ Controlled exposure
€ A hazard free environment
❒ Itis easier to control processes, machinery and
equipment than to control workers

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Principle of Risk Control

2. Prioritise the elimination of hazards, not

the reduction of exposure
❒ No hazard means no exposure
❒ Elimination of hazards is more effective
❒ Reduction of exposure is only recommended where it
is not possible to eliminate or isolate the hazard

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Principle of Risk Control
3. Controls should target below the
permissible exposure limits (PEL)
❒ Risk is reduced if worker exposure is below the
permissible limits
❒ Exposure beyond the permissible limits is harmful to
worker health
❒ Violation of Regulations, if PEL is exceeded

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 Principle of Risk Control
4. Controls should be as low as reasonably
practicable , especially in cases where there is no
data on the permissible exposure limit

❒ The risk of cancer or allergy exists even at low exposure

levels
❒ Hazard free environment is still the best working
environment
❒ Many chemicals do not have permissible exposure limits

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Hierarchy of Risk Controls

• It is a list of protection strategies that are

rated in order of priority from the best to the
worst.
1. Elimination
2. Substitution
3. Isolation
4. Engineering controls
5. Administrative controls - Safe work practices and
procedures
6. Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)

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Other Methods to increase the
levels of Control on health risk at
the Workplace
• Provide Information, instruction and training to workers.
• Exposure monitoring
• Health surveillance
• First aid and emergency facilities
• Warning signals

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