Different Types of Workplace Hazards and Health Concerns

Giulia Bravo, Department of Environmental Sciences and Technology, University in Padua, Padua, Italy, Email: giulia1100@uniud.it

Received: 20-May-2022, Manuscript No. JENVOH-22-68866; Editor assigned: 23-May-2022, Pre QC No. JENVOH-22-68866 (PQ); Reviewed: 07-Jun-2022, QC No. JENVOH-22-68866; Revised: 13-Jun-2022, Manuscript No. JENVOH-22-68866 (R); Published: 22-Jun-2022

Description

A wide range of workplace hazards (sometimes referred to as unsafe working conditions) poses threats to people’s health and safety at work even while labour has numerous financial and other rewards. These include a wide range of psychological risk factors in addition to “chemicals, biological agents, physical factors, bad ergonomic conditions, allergies, and a complex network of safety dangers.” Several of these risks can be mitigated with the aid of personal protective equipment. Long working hours are the occupational risk factor with the highest attributable burden of disease, according to a landmark study by the World Health Organization and the International Labor Organization, which estimates that 745,000 people died from ischemic heart disease and stroke events in 2016. As a result, overwork is now the main risk factor for occupational health worldwide.

Many workers are affected by physical risks at work. With 22 million workers exposed to dangerous excessive noise at work and an estimated $242 million spent each year on worker’s compensation for hearing loss impairment, occupational hearing loss is the most prevalent work-related ailment in the United States. Falls are another typical source of occupational injuries and fatalities, particularly in the cleaning and maintenance of buildings, extraction, transportation, and healthcare industries. Machines can crush, burn, cut, shear, stab, or otherwise strike or injure employees if operated improperly because they have moving parts, sharp edges, hot surfaces, and other risks.

Infectious microorganisms like viruses, bacteria, and poisons produced by those organisms, such as anthrax, are examples of biological hazards (biohazards). Workers in a variety of industries are impacted by biohazards; influenza, for instance, has a widespread impact on workers. Outdoor workers, such as farmers, landscapers landscapers, and construction workers, run the risk of coming into contact with a variety of biohazards, such as animal bites and stings, urushiol from poisonous plants, and illnesses like the West Nile virus and Lyme disease that are spread by animals. Workers in the medical field, including those in veterinary medicine, run the danger of contracting blood-borne infections and other infectious diseases, particularly newly emerging ones.

Chemical hazards can arise at work from dangerous chemicals. Hazardous chemicals can be categorized into a wide range of categories, such as neurotoxins, immunological agents, dermatologic agents, carcinogens, reproductive toxins, systemic toxins, asthmagens, pneumoconiotic agents, and sensitizers. To reduce the danger of chemical risks, authorities such as regulatory agencies set occupational exposure limits. Given that poisons can interact synergistically rather than just additively, research into the health impacts of chemical combinations is ongoing on a global scale. For instance, there is some evidence that certain compounds are dangerous when combined with one or more other substances even at low concentrations. Such compounding effects may play a significant role in the development of cancer. Psychosocial risks are dangers to a worker’s mental and emotional health, such as job uncertainty, excessive hours, and an unsatisfactory work-life balance. The addition of work-directed therapies for depressed workers receiving therapeutic interventions reduces the number of lost work days as compared to clinical interventions alone, according to a recent Cochrane review employing middling quality data. The results of this analysis also showed that minimising sick leave days can be accomplished by integrating cognitive behavioural therapy into primary or occupational care as well as by integrating a “structured telephone outreach and care management programme” into standard treatment.

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