Healthier and safer working environment is always appreciated. Almost 2 million people at work die every year due to accidents or work-related diseases(source: ILO). Concept of Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) has significant importance in industrial sector as compare to universities. Therefore it is common among industries to have standardized Occupational Health and Safety Management System (OHSMS) than universities. Management systems for OHS provide a systematic way of managing health and safety with continual improvement. It is generally considered that management system of health and safety not only reduces loss and cost of accidents and ill-health, but it also improves the performance and efficiency of employees. Universities and colleges are meant to deliver education which is considered their core objective. Risksrelated to health and safety may weaken their aims and objectives.There are few studies of OHSMS in the context of university. This study aims to contribute to knowledge pool by studying OHS work in universities and explorepossibilities for the implementation of OHSMS. This study is based on literature,Standard and Guidelines of occupational health and safety management systems.In addition, study was performed on OHS work among different universities and acase study of University of Gävle (HiG), for possibilities of implementing OHSMS in universities. HiG has a good history of environmental work with ISO14001 certified Environmental Management system (EMS). SWOT analysis was performed for the possibilities of OHSMS implementation at HiG. There are several standards and guidelines which are based on OHSMS and most of them have compatibility with EMS standards. Most of the universities work for OHS of their employees and students without any management system. Selection of suitable OHSMS standard or guideline is dependent on the university structure and its present OHS work. Existing OHS works of Universities have capability to fulfill few OHSMS requirements defined in several standards and guidelineswhich is positive sign for possibilities of OHSMS implementation at Universities.Healthier and safer working environment is always appreciated. Almost 2 millionpeople at work die every year due to accidents or work-related diseases(source: ILO). Concept of Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) has significantimportance in industrial sector as compare to Universities. Therefor it is commonamong industries to have standardized Occupational Health and Safety Management System (OHSMS) than universities. Management systems for OHS provide a systematic way of managing health and safety with continual improvement. It is generally considered that management system of health and safety not only reduces loss and cost of accidents and ill-health, but it alsoimproves the performance and efficiency of employees. Universities and collegesare meant to deliver education which is considered their core objective. Risksrelated to health and safety may weaken their aims and objectives.There are few studies of OHSMS in the context of university. This study aims to contribute to knowledge pool by studying OHS work in universities and explore possibilities for the implementation of OHSMS. This study is based on literature,Standard and Guidelines of occupational health and safety management systems.In addition, study was performed on OHS work among different universities and acase study of University of Gävle (HiG), for possibilities of implementing OHSMS in universities. HiG has a good history of environmental work with ISO14001 certified Environmental Management system (EMS). SWOT analysis was performed for the possibilities of OHSMS implementation at HiG. There are several standards and guidelines which are based on OHSMS and most of them have compatibility with EMS standards. Most of the universities work for OHS of their employees and students without any management system. Selection of suitable OHSMS standard or guideline is dependent on the university structure and its present OHS work. Existing OHS works of universities have capability to fulfill few OHSMS requirements defined in several standards and guidelines which is positive sign for possibilities of OHSMS implementation at Universities.

none

Infrastructure such as transportation networks improves the condition of everyday lives by facilitating public services and systems necessary for economic activity and growth. However, constructing and maintaining transportation infrastructure poses safety hazards and risks to those working at the sharp end, leading to serious injuries and fatalities. Therefore, the identification of hazards and managing the risks they create is integral towards continually improving safety levels in Infrastructure Management. This work seeks to fully understand this problem and highlight past, present and future issues concerning safety in a comprehensive literature review. A decision support tool is proposed to improve the safety of transportation workers by facilitating hazard identification and management of associated control measures. This Tool facilitates the extraction of safety knowledge from real paper-based safety documents, capturing existing worker’s knowledge and experiences from industrial ‘corporate memory’. The Tool suggests the most appropriate control measures for new scenarios based on existing knowledge from previous work tasks. This is achieved by classifying work tasks using a new method based on unilateral UK legislation (Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences (1995) Regulations) and the innovative use of Artificial Intelligence method Case Based Reasoning. Case Based Reasoning (CBR) allows transparency in the Tool processes and has many benefits over other safety tools which may suffer from ‘black box’ stigmatism. The Tool is populated with knowledge extracted from a real transportation project and is hosted via the internet (www. Total-Safety.com). The end product of the Tool is the generation of bespoke method statements detailing appropriate control measures. These generated paper documents are shown to have financial and quality control benefits over traditional method statements. The Tool has undergone testing and analysis and is shown to be robust. Finally, the overall conclusions and opportunities for further research are presented and progress of the work against each of the five research objectives is assessed.

Assessment of employee’s or job applicant’s occupational safety is typically limited to the use of self-report safety scales, and/or examining their accident history. The present study investigated whether a series of spot the difference puzzles could be used as a valid measure of an employee’s safety orientation. The validation of the spot the difference puzzle tool was conducted on a working sample from a construction company. The first task-required employees to complete a series of ten spot the difference puzzles containing five neutral and five safety differences. Measures of a number of safety constructs, and accident history ratings were then taken from both employees and their supervisors. Supervisors were to rate each of their employee’s on a series of the safety constructs and past accident frequencies, while employees completed these same measures using a self-report scale. Results from employee and supervisor safety measures were then correlated with scores from the spot the difference puzzles. The primary aim of the research was to validate the use of the spot the difference puzzles in measuring a job applicant’s safety orientation during recruitment. Forty employees, and four supervisors holding a range of construction based jobs participated in the study. Results confirmed that a subset of five of the puzzles produced significant relationships with measures of an employee’s safety knowledge, motivation and co-worker caring. In addition, results found that safety knowledge and motivation produced significant relationships with measures of employee accident history. With many current measures of safety being effected by biases, such as social desirability, memory recall and impression management, this subset of puzzles may provide organisations with an objective and unbiased tool to measure safety orientation during recruitment.

Despite the known health hazards associated with exposure to lead, occupational lead poisoning remains a health problem. Although a variety of public health programs have been implemented to control this exposure, knowledge of which occupational groups are at greatest risk is incomplete. This research developed and applied a lead risk model that generated estimates of lead-using industries and numbers of employees potentially exposed to lead, and then, validated the model through a lead exposure prevalence survey among construction workers. The lead risk model was developed using data from the National Occupational Exposure Survey, state lead registries, lead inspection results from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and other sources. The model was applied to Massachusetts County Business Patterns and Department of Employment and Training databases to produce state and county estimates of numbers of employees potentially exposed to lead, and lead-using companies, ranked by exposure risk. The sensitivity of the state lead registry was evaluated using estimates from this model. To validate the model, a prevalence survey of lead exposure was conducted among a sample of 127 western Massachusetts plumbers. Based on the model, an estimated 1% (20,825) of Massachusetts employees are potentially exposed to lead, 53% are at moderate or high risk of lead exposure, and 74% work within a 5 contiguous-county area in eastern Massachusetts. There are 3,448 lead-using facilities, representing 2% of total companies. The model also showed a high sensitivity (70%) for state regulated construction groups within the lead registry, but low sensitivities for all other construction industries. The geometric mean for blood lead and zinc protoporphyrin among plumbers in the prevalence survey were 7.0 $\mu$g/dl and 30.9 $\mu$g/dl, respectively, indicating relatively low levels of lead exposure. Current smokers, smoking at the workplace, and hand scraping metal were associated with higher lead levels, while wearing protective equipment at work was associated with lower levels. The model identified non-traditional lead-using industries, thus, potentially allowing the state to better target educational and medical intervention activities to reduce the risk of occupational lead exposure. Similar lead-reduction activities can be applied to other states that adopt the model.

Injury epidemiology, a relatively new sub-discipline of epidemiology, has continued to evolve since the ground-breaking work by Dr. William Haddon during the 1960s. The case-crossover design is a relatively new epidemiological methodology developed specifically for investigating the transient effects of a brief exposure on the onset of an acute outcome. This dissertation work provides some initial empirical data illustrating the strengths and limitations of the case-crossover design as applied within the field of occupational injury epidemiology. The review of the literature details the utility of the case-crossover study design, the currently known strengths and limitations, and confirms the under-utilization of this design to date. Examples from an on-going multi-center, interview-based, case-crossover study of acute traumatic occupational hand injuries are utilized to highlight some of the strengths and weaknesses of this new method, as applied to injury research. The application demonstrates the importance of temporal factors in determining the etiology of occupational acute traumatic hand injury. The findings point out the need to know more about the timing of high risk work tasks and transient exposures throughout the work day. These factors should be taken into consideration when developing intervention strategies for the prevention of hand injuries in the workplace. To evaluate the potential impact of information bias on the results of this study, a reliability study was also conducted. The findings from this test-retest study suggest that the frequency and duration of unusual transient workplace exposures, occurring proximal to the time of an injury, can be reliably recalled using a telephone interview.

Face velocity is the standard variable used to test the performance of laboratory fume hoods. A quantitative testing method developed by Caplan & Knutson involves the measurement of tracer gas leakage out of a hood. Use of that method identified parameters other than face velocity that seemed to affect hood performance. In this study, a new testing method (Scott Method) was developed to incorporate hood parameters identified by Caplan & Knutson with face velocity measurements to generate a more comprehensive hood performance test method. The Scott Method consists of a semi-quantitative rating scheme that assesses the effects of traffic, diffuser velocity, equipment in the hood, and variation in face velocity on hood performance. The performance of 10 laboratory fume hoods was measured by the three methods; the Caplan & Knutson method was used as the measurement standard. The study hypothesis was that the Scott Method would yield a better prediction of hood performance than face velocity alone. This study suggests that prediction of hood performance by the Scott Method was not significantly improved relative to the use of face velocity alone.

Thesis (M.P.H.(Occupational Hygiene)), Faculty of Health Sciences,University of the Witwatersrand, 2009 / This study was aimed at describing the nature of Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) inspections and blitzes conducted in the Port Elizabeth Integrated Department of Labour (DoL) in 2005, the nature and number of prohibitions, contraventions, as well as improvement notices issued. The objectives were to determine the number of OHS inspections conducted in the Port Elizabeth Labour Centre (PELC) in 2005; to describe the nature of the inspections and the type of industries inspected in the PELC in 2005; and to determine the frequency and nature of prohibitions, contraventions and improvement notices issued. The data was obtained from the PELC. The results of the study revealed that the inspectorate conducted a total of 1258 and this exceeded the target of 800 OHS inspections for the PELC. However, it is questionable how this target was developed. The target is not representative and does not give an overall picture of conditions in the workplace. The results indicated that inspectors were not competent in conducting boiler inspections as well on Major Hazardous Installation (MHI) since none of these inspections were conducted. On the inception of the OHS task team, there was a sudden increase in inspections conducted in the construction industry in October 2005 as well as the rate of finalisation of incidents in November 2005 and this was attributed to the fact that they were not conducting inspections on other labour laws and were only focusing on OHS. An assessment of the inspectors’ inspection checklists revealed that the inspections were being reduced to just a yes or no tick exercise, with no recommendation on appropriate action to be taken by the employer. It became evident that the inception of a special team in September 2005 contributed to an increased number of OHS inspections, since they were only focusing on OHS issues. This team ensured that in November 2005 there were 43 incidents finalised as compared to the 101 finalised over 11 months. They also ensured that a total of 258 OHS inspections were conducted from September 2005 to December 2005. Although these inspectors were not fully competent in addressing health and s afety issues their momentary focus on OHS activities ensured that they made a difference in the rate of finalisation of incidents. However, when some of the cases were taken to court no successful prosecution could be obtained because there are no OHS focused prosecutors, which have a clear understanding of Act. Discussions with the inspectors revealed that there was a lack of morale and loss of interest in their work, thus causing them not to put in much effort. These discussions revealed that this lack of morale was caused by the frustrations they often experienced in the execution of their duties due to lack of training as well as lack of cooperation from the employers. Furthermore, the inspectors revealed that the great number of resignations from inspectors who were leaving for greener pastures left them with a lot of work with no financial incentive. It also became apparent that there was no objective strategy underlying the number of inspections required relative to the purpose of the inspections, taking into account the nature and complexity of the industry that is to be inspected. The failure of the Service Delivery Unit to give a direction on how qualitative inspections should be measured demoralised them because the focus was only on the quantity (240 inspections per annum) of inspections that are to be conducted by each inspector. It is recommended that training, which should include a proper career path be conducted for inspectors to improve the inspectors’ capability and to motivate them. Strong relations with the South African Police Services and the Department of Justice should be promoted to ensure effectiveness of service delivery. These relations will ensure that inspectors are readily assisted by the police when they deal with uncooperative employers. Training of prosecutors will ensure that they understand the OHSA and its implementation and therefore effectively defend cases that are taken to court. The targets set for inspections should be scientifically supported and take into account the nature and complexity of the production processes. Lastly, revision of salary packages should be looked into to ensure retention of competent staff. The above recommendations will only be effective if the Business Unit Manager and the Regional Manager address them through the National Department of Labour since their implementation will affect all inspectors.

No description available.

No description available.