Safety and Health

Occupational safety and health is a cross-disciplinary area concerned with protecting the safety, health and welfare of people engaged in work or employment. As a secondary effect, it may also protect co-workers, family members, employers, customers, suppliers, nearby communities, and other members of the public who are impacted by the workplace environment. It may involve interactions among many subject areas, including occupational medicine, occupational (or industrial) hygiene, public health, safety engineering, chemistry, health physics, ergonomics, toxicology, epidemiology, environmental health, industrial relations, public policy, sociology, andoccupational health psychology.

 The reasons for establishing good occupational safety and health standards are frequently identified as:

• Moral – An employee should not have to risk injury or death at work, nor should others associated with the work environment.
• Economic – many governments realize that poor occupational safety and health performance results in cost to the State (e.g. through social security payments to the incapacitated, costs for medical treatment, and the loss of the “employability” of the worker). Employing organisations also sustain costs in the event of an incident at work (such as legal fees, fines, compensatory damages, investigation time, lost production, lost goodwill from the workforce, from customers and from the wider community).

Legal – Occupational safety and health requirements may be reinforced in civil law and/or criminal law; it is accepted that without the extra “encouragement” of potential regulatory action or litigation, many organisations would not act upon their implied moral obligations