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BUSINESS AND TRAINING
Occupational hazards,
stressors in the workplace
The adage ‘Cowboys don’t cry’ is nonsense when it comes to stress.
Occupational hazards can seem juxtaposed to workplace stressors,
but there is a confluence of elements that can cause one to feel
stressed about the possibility of sustaining an occupational injury.
If you identify and curb these stressors early on, it is manageable,
writes Rory Macnamara.
The workplace can be perilous where safety is
concerned. Stress factors must be treated with the
same regard.
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NOISE
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration reports
that hearing loss from excessive noise is a predominant
occupational concern. Much of this hearing loss is
preventable through taking appropriate safety measures,
such as wearing earplugs or reducing the loudness of the
noise. Workplace accidents and injuries can also increase
due to excessive noise, as workers may not hear warning
signals or simply may not be able to think straight due to
the constant disturbance within their environment.
EYE INJURIES
What contributes to eye injuries at work?
• Not wearing eye protection
Reports show that nearly three out of every five
workers injured were not wearing eye protection at
the time of the accident.
• Wearing the wrong kind of eye protection
for the job
About 40% of the injured workers were wearing
some form of eye protection when the accident
occurred. These workers were most likely wearing
eye protection with no side shields, though injuries
among employees wearing full-cup or flat-fold side
shields occurred, too.
WHAT CAUSES EYE INJURIES?
• Flying particles
BLS found that almost 70% of the accidents
studied resulted from flying or falling objects, or
sparks striking the eye. Injured workers estimated
that nearly three-fifths of the objects were smaller
than a pinhead. Most of the particles were said to
be traveling faster than a hand-thrown object when
the accident occurred.
January 2018 Volume 23 I Number 11
Contact with chemicals
Contact with chemicals caused one-fifth of the
injuries.
Other accidents
Other accidents were caused by objects swinging
from a fixed or attached position, like tree limbs,
ropes, chains, or tools that were pulled into the eye
while the worker was using them.
EXTREME TEMPERATURES
Heat stress is the overall heat load to which a worker
may be exposed from the combined contributions of
metabolic heat, environmental factors (such as air
temperature, humidity, air movement, and radiant heat),
and clothing requirements. Metabolic heat is the heat
produced by the body through chemical processes,
exercise, hormone activity, digestion, and so forth.
[Source: 2016 TLVs and BEIs: Threshold Limit Values
for Chemical Substances and Physical Agents and
Biological Exposure Indices. Cincinnati, Ohio: American
Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists.]
Heat may emit from many sources. For example:
• In foundries, steel mills, bakeries, smelters, glass
factories, and furnaces, extremely hot or molten
material is the main source of heat.
• In outdoor occupations, such as construction, road
repair, open-pit mining, and agriculture, summer
sunshine is the main source of heat.
• In laundries, restaurant kitchens, and canneries,
high humidity adds to the heat burden.
In all instances, the cause of heat stress is a working
environment that can potentially overwhelm the body’s
ability to deal with heat.
Most people feel comfortable when the air
temperature is between 20°C and 27°C, and when
the relative humidity ranges from 35% to 60%. When
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