This thesis aims at investigating the importance of effective implementation of health safety and hygiene legislations and practices in Health Care delivery systems. A new System Based Approach for Strategic Implementation of Occupational Health & Safety Practices is proposed in this thesis. The underlying principle of the approach is based on involvement and inputs from staff and management rather than by pre-specified requirements and objectives. Furthermore, the development process is a closed loop process that provides a mechanism for continuously evaluating system performance and monitoring activities that have considerable impact on health and safety practices. A case study was conducted in the medical laboratories of five major hospitals in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. Data were collected through questionnaires, staff interviews, and reviewing laboratory safety reports compiled over a three years period. The main conclusions from this study are: 1. The proposed approach has proven to be useful in analyzing existing health and safety systems. The methodology and tools proved to be instrumental in defining inefficiencies and determining the status of the Health & Safety policies & practices in the selected medical laboratories. 2. Effective implementation of the proposed approach has shown improvements in productivity, operational cost, service quality, staff and management satisfaction. 3. The case study has demonstrated that a developing country such the UAE, with no previously existing Health & Safety legislation and little risk prevention culture, can rapidly and effectively introduce effective industry specific H&S by adopting an integrated systems based approach. 4. UAE has highly advanced and economically developing base, there is a general willingness at senior level within the UAE to achieve high levels of competence and standards in all industrial sectors. 5. CAP is a system based management tool which has been implemented globally, but only limited in the gulf region; CAP has been implemented by the author and colleges within Zayed Military Hospital between 2003-2007.

Darbo jėgą sudaro apie 45 % pasaulio gyventojų. Profesinės traumos, su darbu susijusios ligos turi didelę reikšmę darbuotojų sveikatai. Ligos, kurios nesusijusios su darbu, gali taip pat turėti įtakos darbo našumui. Darbuotojų saugos ir sveikatos tarnybos plačiai pripažįstamos kaip esminis sveikesnės ir saugesnės darbo aplinkos kūrimo elementas. Darbo tikslas – įvertinti Darbuotojų saugos ir sveikatos tarnybų veiklą Lietuvos energetikos sektoriaus įmonėse. Darbo tikslui pasiekti buvo iškelti šie uždaviniai: įvertinti Lietuvos Darbuotojų saugos ir sveikatos tarnybų funkcijų atitikimą TDO 161 (ILO 161) konvencijai; nustatyti vykdomas Lietuvos energetikos sektoriaus įmonių Darbuotojų saugos ir sveikatos tarnybų funkcijas; įvertinti Lietuvos energetikos sektoriaus įmonių Darbuotojų saugos ir sveikatos žmogiškųjų resursų atitikimą Lietuvos Respublikos teisės aktams. Lietuvos DSS tarnybų funkcijų atitikimas TDO 161 konvencijai buvo vertinamas pagal 11 funkcijų, reglamentuotų konvencijoje. DSS tarnybų funkcijos ir žmogiškieji resursai nustatyti atlikus anketinė apklausą, kuri atlikta 2009 m. lapkričio – gruodžio mėnesiais. Naudota anketa sudaryta remiantis Pasaulinės sveikatos organizacijos rekomendacijomis: „Regioninės rekomendacijos: Sveikos darbo vietos plėtra“ ir „Pagrindinės profesinės sveikatos tarnybos“. Tyrimo metu atlikus anketinę apklausą ištirta 14 (53,8 proc.) energetikos sektoriaus DSS tarnybų. Lietuvos DSS tarnybų funkcijų atitikimas parodė, kad šių tarnybų veiklos... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Labour force is constituted of some 45 per cent of the world population. Occupational injuries, as well as work related diseases have a lot of influence on health of the labour force. Diseases, which are not related to work, may also have an impact on efficiency of work. Occupational health and safety (OHS) services are widely recognized as the essential element of healthier and more secure labour environment. The aim of the work is to evaluate activities of OHS services in energy sector companies in Lithuania. The following tasks were raised in order to achieve the aim: to assess the conformity of functions performed by Lithuanian OHS services with ILO Convention No. 161; to identify functions of OHS services in energy sector companies in Lithuania; to identify and evaluate the conformity of human resources of OHS services in energy sector companies in Lithuania with the legislation of the Republic of Lithuania. Conformity of functions of Lithuanian OHS services with ILO Convention No. 161 was assessed on the basis of 11 functions regulated in the Convention. Functions and human resources of the Occupational health and safety services were detected having performed a questionnaire survey in November – December 2009. Questionnaire was drawn up following the guidelines of the World Health Organization (WHO): Regional Guidelines for the Development of Healthy Workplaces and Basic Occupational Health Services. During the research a questionnaire survey was performed, which... [to full text]

The diploma thesis concentrates on the topic of occupational health and safety of healthcare workers in intensive care unit. The main topic of the theoretical part is the definition of the term occupational health and safety, summarization of its contents and clarification of the law regulation concerning subject. The main purpose of the empiric part is to find out whether the healthcare employees that work in intensive care unit follow the principles of occupational health and safety. The research questions are supposed to find out how thoroughly are these principles followed, whether the staff is sufficiently informed about occupational health and safety, what are the most frequent causes of its violation and if the staff knows their risk that come from breaking the rules of health and safety principles. Furthermore these questions should find out, which positive factors influence the following of occupational health and safety on the intensive unit workplace. The questions also research, whether the healthcare management has set good training and inspection of adhering to occupational health and safety rules. The data needed to come up with the previously mentioned results have been processed in the form of qualitative and quantitative research. The statistic evaluation is done though the...

Esta pesquisa objetiva observar como se dá a constituição dialógica no gênero dis-cursivo artigo científico em sua relação com enunciados anteriores, pautando-se na teoria dialógica do discurso, tal como proposta por Bakhtin e seu Círculo. Parte-se da hipótese de que, nesse gênero, as relações dialógicas são mais profundas e complexas que os diálogos mais explícitos, que envolvem as citações sob a forma de discurso direto e indireto. O corpus constitui-se por dois grupos de materiais: o primeiro é composto por uma norma da Associação Brasileira de Normas Técnicas (ABNT) e três manuais de metodologia da pesquisa científica; e o segundo, por quinze artigos científicos publicados ao longo de trinta anos do periódico científico Revista Brasileira de Saúde Ocupacional, da Fundacentro, instituição do Ministério do Trabalho, dedicada à pesquisa na área de Saúde e Segurança do Trabalhador. Observaram-se seis tipos de relações dialógicas: complementação como marca de novidade, confirmação e concordância, diálogo com o conhecimento científico con-sensual, referenciação bibliográfica com apagamento dos limites discursivos, enun-ciados colcha de retalhos, discordância em relação a enunciados alheios. Cada uma delas ocorre, quase sempre, na mesma articulação composicional, pois de-sempenham funções no gênero artigo científico que são condizentes com a função da articulação em que se encontram. Conclui-se que as relações dialógicas obser-vadas nos artigos científicos não só são mais profundas e complexas que os discur-sos citados, confirmando-se a hipótese levantada, como também constituem carac-terísticas específicas do gênero, visto que respondem às necessidades da esfera, mantendo, ao longo dos anos, determinado padrão da forma composicional do gênero. / This research aims to observe how occurs the dialogical constitution of scientific ar-ticle genre in its relation with previous utterances, based on dialogical theory of dis-course, such as proposed by Bakhtin and his Circle. The hypothesis is that, at this genre, dialogical relations are deeper and more complex than the most explicit ones, which involves citations, such as direct and indirect discourses. The corpus is consti-tuted by two groups of materials: the first one is composed by a standard of Brazilian Association of Technical Standards and by three scientific inquiry methodological manuals; the second group is composed by fifteen scientific articles published at scientific journal Revista Brasileira de Saúde Ocupacional during thirty years. This journal is published by Fundacentro, a Brazilian governmental research institution in the field of Occupational Health and Safety. Six types of dialogical relations were ob-served: complementation as novelty, confirmation and concordance, dialogue with scientific consensus, bibliographic reference with effacement of discursive limits, pat-chwork utterances, and discordance about others utterances. Almost always, each of them occurs at the same compositional articulation, because their functions at scien-tific article are suitable with compositional articulation functions where they are. We conclude that observed dialogical relations are not only deeper and more complex than cited discourses, confirming our hypothesis, but also constitute genre specifics characteristics, because they meet the needs of the sphere, maintaining a specific compositional form standard of the genre, during the years.

Submitted by Nara Lays Domingues Viana Oliveira (naradv) on 2015-07-14T14:59:45Z No. of bitstreams: 1 goes.pdf: 120351938 bytes, checksum: 2817935832aa5b54edb1b8238316ed43 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-07-14T14:59:45Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 goes.pdf: 120351938 bytes, checksum: 2817935832aa5b54edb1b8238316ed43 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-08-28 / Nenhuma / A presente Tese de Doutorado traz uma abordagem acerca das nanotecnologias e seus desdobramentos no mundo do trabalho, sobretudo quanto à preocupação de proteção da saúde e da segurança do trabalhador, como forma de preservação da sua dignidade. Essa preocupação não só se mantém quando se trata de trabalho nanotecnológico, como também se acentua e ganha novos contornos, pois ao se falar em anotecnologias, está se falando em um cenário de incertezas e inseguranças. As pesquisas e estudos sobre essas novas tecnologias ainda não possuem definições concretas quanto aos riscos e efeitos das nanotecnologias para o homem e para o meio ambiente, mas dadas a características das nanopartículas, se tem a certeza de que efeitos nocivos serão produzidos. Esse quadro provoca o surgimento de riscos desconhecidos e futuros. Diante deste novo panorama, o Direito do Trabalho deve prestar respostas às demandas nanotecnológicas decorrentes do fato (jurídico) laboral nanotecnológico, até mesmo porque, existindo efeitos nocivos, logicamente, os trabalhadores serão seus primeiros destinatários, em razão da fabricação, manipulação e exposição de nanotecnologias, em decorrência de nanopartículas, nanomateriais e nanotubos. Não restam dúvidas que o Direito do Trabalho, seguindo a linha de que a eliminação e diminuição de riscos laborais é direito fundamental social do trabalhador, possui um vigente sistema normativo de prevenção. Todavia, em se tratando de nanotecnologias, o que existe em termos de normas não é suficiente para promover a efetiva proteção do trabalhador nanotecnológico. Em vista disso e almejando aproveitamento para as nanotecnologias, fixa-se a ideia de utilização do conjunto interpretativo círculo hermenêutico= princípio de solidariedade=consciência coletiva. Com efeito, o princípio da precaução surge como ponto de partida para se criar marcos regulatórios que atendam esse novo fato jurídico. Neste sentido, a Tese apresenta a proposta hermenêutica do “diálogo entre as fontes” de Direito do Trabalho como forma de permitir que se encontrem respostas (“vozes”) a partir de um “diálogo” coordenado pelo intérprete que será estabelecido entre fontes tradicionais e não tradicionais do Direito. Neste contexto a proposta hermenêutica ofertada se aproximará muito mais de um modelo de regulação não tradicional do que de uma regulação tradicional ou legal. Seguindo essa linha, a Tese buscará apresentar propostas de marcos regulatórios que possam ser aplicáveis à relação nanotecnologias x trabalho humano, lançando mão de orientações, recomendações e normas técnicas de determinados órgãos internacionais, os quais têm se dedicado a um tratamento específico acerca dos efeitos do trabalho nanotecnológico, bem como apresenta um Projeto de Lei de alteração da Consolidação das Leis do Trabalho, representando a expressão de uma nova hermenêutica do Direito ou de um novo Direito. Não obstante as alternativas que se apresentam, todos os argumentos desta Tese restam estruturados na ideia de um objetivo ético universal: o cuidado humano – a preocupação com o irredutível humano -, e o cuidado constitucional – a preocupação com a dignidade do trabalhador que, no caso, somente se materializará com a preservação da sua saúde e da sua segurança em todo o contexto do trabalho nanotecnológico. / This doctoral thesis presents an approach toward nanotechnology and its effects on the realm of labor, especially in terms of occupational health and safety, as a means of preserving the dignity of workers. This concern not only applies to nanotechnological work, but is also intensified and takes on new dimensions, since addressing the issue of nanotechnologies takes place against a backdrop of uncertainties and insecurities. The research and studies on these new technologies have not yet provided concrete definitions regarding the risks and effects of nanotechnologies on man and the environment, but given the characteristics of nanoparticles, it is certain that harmful effects will occur. This scenario gives rise to unknown and future risks. In light of this new panorama, Labor Law must respond to nanotechnological demands that arise from the (legal) nanotechnological labor reality, all the more since, given the existence of harmful effects, workers will naturally be the first to suffer the impact, due to manufacturing, handling and exposure to nanotechnologies, in terms of nanoparticles, nanomaterials and nanotubes. There is no doubt that Labor Law, in accordance with the concept that the elimination and reduction of occupational hazards is a fundamental social right of workers, has a set of rules in force for prevention. However, in the case of nanotechnologies, what exists in terms of standards is insufficient to ensure the effective protection of nanotechnology workers. In view of this and in order to use nanotechnologies, there is an idea established to use the following interpretive equation: hermeneutic circle = principle of solidarity = collective consciousness. In effect, the principle of precaution is a starting point for creating regulatory frameworks that will meet this new legal reality. In this regard, the thesis presents a hermeneutical proposal for "dialogue between the sources" of Labor Law, so that answers ("voices") can be found, based on a "dialogue" coordinated by the interpreter that would be established between traditional and non-traditional sources of Law. In this context, the hermeneutic proposal offered here will be much closer to a nontraditional regulatory model than a traditional or legal regulatory model. Along these lines, the thesis will seek to present proposals for regulatory frameworks that could be applicable to the nanotechnologies x human labor relationship, using guidelines recommendations and technical standards from certain international organizations, which have dedicated themselves to specifically addressing the effects of nanotechnological work. IT also presents a Bill to amend the CLT ("Consolidation of Labor Laws"), which would serve to express a new hermeneutics of law or a new law. Regardless of the alternatives that are presented, all the arguments of this thesis are structured around the idea of a universal ethical objective: human care – concern at the essential human level, as well as constitutional care – concern for the dignity of workers, which will only materialize through the preservation of their health and safety within the entire context of nanotechnological work.

Esta pesquisa objetiva observar como se dá a constituição dialógica no gênero dis-cursivo artigo científico em sua relação com enunciados anteriores, pautando-se na teoria dialógica do discurso, tal como proposta por Bakhtin e seu Círculo. Parte-se da hipótese de que, nesse gênero, as relações dialógicas são mais profundas e complexas que os diálogos mais explícitos, que envolvem as citações sob a forma de discurso direto e indireto. O corpus constitui-se por dois grupos de materiais: o primeiro é composto por uma norma da Associação Brasileira de Normas Técnicas (ABNT) e três manuais de metodologia da pesquisa científica; e o segundo, por quinze artigos científicos publicados ao longo de trinta anos do periódico científico Revista Brasileira de Saúde Ocupacional, da Fundacentro, instituição do Ministério do Trabalho, dedicada à pesquisa na área de Saúde e Segurança do Trabalhador. Observaram-se seis tipos de relações dialógicas: complementação como marca de novidade, confirmação e concordância, diálogo com o conhecimento científico con-sensual, referenciação bibliográfica com apagamento dos limites discursivos, enun-ciados colcha de retalhos, discordância em relação a enunciados alheios. Cada uma delas ocorre, quase sempre, na mesma articulação composicional, pois de-sempenham funções no gênero artigo científico que são condizentes com a função da articulação em que se encontram. Conclui-se que as relações dialógicas obser-vadas nos artigos científicos não só são mais profundas e complexas que os discur-sos citados, confirmando-se a hipótese levantada, como também constituem carac-terísticas específicas do gênero, visto que respondem às necessidades da esfera, mantendo, ao longo dos anos, determinado padrão da forma composicional do gênero. / This research aims to observe how occurs the dialogical constitution of scientific ar-ticle genre in its relation with previous utterances, based on dialogical theory of dis-course, such as proposed by Bakhtin and his Circle. The hypothesis is that, at this genre, dialogical relations are deeper and more complex than the most explicit ones, which involves citations, such as direct and indirect discourses. The corpus is consti-tuted by two groups of materials: the first one is composed by a standard of Brazilian Association of Technical Standards and by three scientific inquiry methodological manuals; the second group is composed by fifteen scientific articles published at scientific journal Revista Brasileira de Saúde Ocupacional during thirty years. This journal is published by Fundacentro, a Brazilian governmental research institution in the field of Occupational Health and Safety. Six types of dialogical relations were ob-served: complementation as novelty, confirmation and concordance, dialogue with scientific consensus, bibliographic reference with effacement of discursive limits, pat-chwork utterances, and discordance about others utterances. Almost always, each of them occurs at the same compositional articulation, because their functions at scien-tific article are suitable with compositional articulation functions where they are. We conclude that observed dialogical relations are not only deeper and more complex than cited discourses, confirming our hypothesis, but also constitute genre specifics characteristics, because they meet the needs of the sphere, maintaining a specific compositional form standard of the genre, during the years.

The influence and impact that digitalisation have in our society has not gone unnoticed, every aspect of our daily lives have more or less been digitalized so that we can effectively communicate, share and gain information and knowledge through IT solutions. Businesses and organisations are being more effective and efficient by embedding IT solutions as a strategy into their daily work. A particular field that has been stagnant through this revolution is how businesses and organisations manage their workplace environment and the purpose of this study is therefore to shed light on, and contribute with knowledge about, the potential that IT have when it comes to managing organisational occupational health and safety. We look further into a graphical user interface such as dashboard to gain an insight on how it could be used as a tool to monitor progress within occupational health and safety. The methods used in this exploration are integrated approaches which contains both qualitative and quantitative methods, the data was collected through interviews and surveys in a public organisation. The results of the study displays three main concerns which are caused by the lack of systematic approach while working with occupational health and safety. These three concerns are identified as feedback challenges, lack of consistency and absence of appropriate actions. The study further highlights which key factors that need to be successful in order to create and maintain a healthy occupational health and safety. With the result of our study, businesses and organisations can gain an understanding and insight on what type of advantages can be gained by using IT in order to promote a systematic approach while dealing with a challenging task as the workplace environment.

This study was conducted in a rubber farming community in Southern Thailand with rubber farmers and their first-line public healthcare providers as the study informants. The study aims were to first, explore perceived effects of work exposures in rubber farming on rubber farmers’ health, second, identify decisions made in response to the effects of work exposures on health, and third, determine influencing factors on the construction of the perception and the process of decision making. Data were obtained using ethnographic research methods, underpinned by an interpretative paradigm. Unstructured interviews and participant observation were employed as the principal means of data collection. Together with the primary methods of data collection, note taking (fieldnotes, fieldwork personal journal, and photographs) and reviewing/analysing existing documents were employed. While data were being collected, initial data analysis was carried out to make sense of information gained and direct further steps of the data collection. After terminating the data collection, ethnographic data analysis suggested by Spradley (1979, 1980) was used to determine themes to meet the aims of the study. The study findings reveal that individual rubber farmers and healthcare providers construct perceptions of effects of rubber farming on rubber farmers’ health and decisions on the actions taken to manage the rubber farmers’ work-related health problems based on their own accounts of compounding factors. Among factors identified, discrepancies between health policy and its practice, coupled with the existence of a hierarchy of power-superior-inferior relationships among individual levels of health authority-emerge as the most powerful factors, inducing the emergence of other factors. Recommendations made as a result of this study draw attention mainly to the minimisation of the discrepancies between health policies and their implications, and the establishment of partnership status among authorised health agencies and between health agencies and rubber farmers in order to improve the quality of occupational safety and health services provided to the rubber farmers.

Although the effects of noise on children’s learning in school classrooms is well documented, there is very little on the effects of noise on preschool children. There are strict legal requirements for the daily noise exposure an adult worker can received in the workplace but nothing to control the noise children can receive in school and early education. There is also little or no data on how sound affects a child, compared to an adult. The early years of life are critical for the development of speech, hearing and auditory processes, as well as being the most vulnerable time for middle ear infections. This work sets out to determine the typical noise levels in early childhood centres and the effects on a range of children and their teachers. Reverberation times in most centres were found to well exceed the 0.6 seconds prescribed by the Australasian standard for schools and learning spaces. Very high levels of noise were recorded in a number of centres with a significant number of children and staff members, exceeding the maximum daily sound exposure of 100% permitted for workers in industry. A range of special needs children were identified as being particularly at-risk to noise, with the most adverse outcomes reported for those experiencing sensory integration disorder. Yet, even though high levels of noise were recorded, the majority of respondents in a survey of teachers rated the lack of sufficient space for the number of children present as the main issue, and inclement weather as the greatest environmental condition contributing to noise (by confining children indoors, especially over long periods of time). Hearing tests on the children were not permitted under the strict human ethics criteria to which this study had to conform, but simple hearing tests on a small group of teachers, revealed that hearing loss could be a serious occupational health issue. The legal issues of noise control and management in early childhood education have been addressed in this thesis, current legal frameworks reviewed, and recommendations presented for future consideration.

In public health, prevention is a fundamentally political process as both the selection of problems to be addressed and solutions recommended reflect decisions that are informed by economic, social and cultural forces. Yet prevention is often presented as a monolithic enterprise, an objective and scientific discourse that does not take sides. Behind this facade of political neutrality, diversely positioned individuals and groups often fail to find and/or sustain a common ground for shared prevention initiatives. Increasingly, many prevention awareness campaigns focus upon true accounts or injury narratives that serve both as a catalyst to build multipartite consensus through developing shared collaborative prevention discourses and practices and to mobilize public support for health and safety issues. While the use of the true account form is a recommended strategy in the public health literature directed toward practitioners, the engagement of true accounts in prevention campaigns has not been adequately problematised and examined from a critical social theoretical perspective. A qualitative, sociologically oriented case study of the use of the true account form, the commemorative, in young worker safety campaigns is proposed to deepen our understanding of this particular type of prevention intervention in particular and prevention as an enterprise more generally. The study investigates the socio-historical context in which the Young Worker Memorial LifeQuilt, a Canadian young worker educational initiative, emerged and unraveled as a multipartite prevention campaign centered upon the true account form of consensus commemoratives. A key finding is that true accounts of young workers killed on the job are socially mediated to diffuse blame and build consensus between diversely positioned occupational health and safety practitioners and the family survivors of workplace tragedies. What is included and excluded from these true accounts of workplace injuries, as socially constructed narratives in multipartite prevention awareness campaigns, may be, in part, a product of the terms and conditions negotiated between lead players. The true accounts included in collaborative, cross-institutional prevention campaigns, while referencing real events, may be told in ways that accommodate and harmonize the political perspectives of diversely positioned stakeholders. Conversely, the true account form is a potentially problematic strategy for collaborative prevention discourses and practices, as consensus commemoratives can be retold as critical remembrances of workplace death, with the result that the unifying narrative of a shared, collective memory project is undermined. This dissertation finds that the activity of collaboration shapes prevention as a socio-political activity/practice.