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Folkhälsoarbetets nationella mål är att skapa förutsättningar för en god hälsa på lika villkor. Arbetsplatsen är en betydelsefull arena för folkhälsan genom att människor påverkas av arbetsförutsättningar samt balansen mellan arbete och privatliv. Företagshälsovård är en aktör i välfärdssamhället som i samverkan med företag arbetar för att förebygga ohälsa, främja hälsa samt för att skapa säkra arbetsplatser. Syftet var att få en djupare förståelse för varför arbetsgivare inom offentlig sektor köper externa tjänster från företagshälsovård. Studiens design var en kvalitativ metod med semistrukturerade intervjuer. Urvalsprocessen genomfördes med strategiskt urval och de elva genomförda intervjuerna transkriberades och analyserades med induktiv innehållsanalys. Resultatet visar att arbetsgivare köpte externa tjänster från företagshälsovården för att bland annat erbjuda hälsovårdande insatser, för att få ökad kunskap om anställdas hälsa samt för att kunna arbeta förebyggande. Genom att belysa vilka skäl arbetsgivare har som avgör anslutning till företagshälsovård kan det ge djupare förståelse för varför arbetsgivare upphandlar företagshälsovårdstjänster samt att den ökade kunskapen också kan ge insikter i hur företagshälsovården eventuellt skulle kunna verka på flera sätt på arbetsplatser. / The national aim of the public health work is to create conditions for good health on equal terms. Workplaces are an important arena for public health because people are affected by work conditions and work-life balance. Occupational health care is an actor in the welfare society, which in co-operation with companies are working to prevent illness, promote health, and to create safe workplaces. The purpose of this study was to gain a deeper understanding of why employers in the public sector bought external services from occupational health care. A qualitative method was employed and the data were collected with semi-structured interviews. The selection process was conducted with strategic selection and the eleven interviews were transcribed and analyzed with inductive content analysis. Employers bought external services from occupational health care in order to, for example, offer health care services, to get a deeper understanding of employees’ health and to be able to work preventively. The results serves a deeper understanding of why employers procures occupational health care services and the increased knowledge can also provide insights into how occupational health care services could operate in several ways at workplaces.

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.

Laboratory safety has recently become more of an imperative in research laboratories than it has ever been in the past. Recent accidents at several universities have escalated the awareness of safety concerns in laboratory workspaces among the general public and created a greater need for a stronger culture of safety in chemistry research overall. Historically, results and publications have been the top priority of most researchers, not laboratory safety. This thesis discusses a number of laboratory accidents. The first happened in December of 2008 at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and resulted in the death of a graduate student researcher. Many safety concerns and violations contributed to the fatality. The second accident happened in June of 2014 at the University of Minnesota (UMN). This incident involved an explosion in a fume hood that caused injuries to the researcher as well as a great deal of damage to the hood and experimental setup. Various minor incidents at the University of Vermont (UVM) are also discussed with regards to the effects on laboratory safety at the university. Universities around the country have been able to learn from these accidents in order to prevent similar occurrences in the future. These accidents and their safety ramifications at UCLA, UMN, and UVM are the focus of this thesis. The safety programs at each of these universities are examined and compared with respect to how the incidents have facilitated necessary changes. Finally, future goals and opportunities for the safety program at UVM are suggested.

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.

Limited information is available describing ergonomics issues and physical risk factors for work-related musculoskeletal pain in the eye care clinical environment. The purpose of this thesis was to estimate the distribution of exposure to forceful muscular exertion of neck and shoulder muscles, and to estimate the relative contribution of important components of exposure variance to overall exposure variance. Surface electromyography (EMG) was used to continuously collect muscle activity measurements of the right and left upper trapezius muscles as well as the right and left anterior deltoid muscles throughout two full working days in clinical ophthalmology. The study observed between-exam-within-day-within-subject to be the variance component with the greatest contribution to total exposure variance in most EMG summary measures. For example, 52.1% of the exposure variability could be attributed to the exam and only 18.7% attributable to the day for the mean RMS value of the right upper trapezius. Similar results were found in the left anterior deltoid muscle with 52.7% exposure variability attributable to the exam and 15.7% attributable to the day. For futures investigations, the large between-exam variance implies the need for longer measurement durations in order to obtain more exams and to explore deeper into the physical risk factors the exams.

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