Patty's Industrial Hygiene, Hazard Recognition. Группа авторов

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СКАЧАТЬ object, cuts, crushes, burns, electric shock, or improper lifting, bending, or stretching and may also include addressing the use of flammable and/or exploding chemicals in production processes.

      As with IH, OS training and professional development often do not include the methods of proper and sustainable communication of the risks present within a given workplace. However, there is an advantage for safety professionals when it comes to the discussions with workers' about the adverse outcomes inherent in industry and manufacturing and the methods to provide barriers to prevent these scenarios from occurring. As an example, if an employee loses a finger in a carpenter shop as an outcome of improper use of a saw, the OS professional will have the full attention of the workers the next day as they can immediately understand that they do not want to lose a finger. Acute traumatic events like this can also include electrical shocks, falls from elevation, machinery mishaps, back injuries, and burns to name just a few. As the outcomes of events like these are immediate and often severe, the opportunity to communicate the risks involved and to inject methods of prevention to the workforce is more likely to be maximized and retained. In the absence of a traumatic injury as a precursor to a safety professional's discussion of hazards, risks, and control barriers to employees, the potential to be in a difficult risk communication position is like the one found for the IH profession. In this situation, both professions need to find an appropriate strategy to ensure workers understand the potential for hazards posing a high risk that requires a consistent implementation of controls is essential. Even if the harm these hazards cause might not be imminent or are considered an intrinsic and accepted component of the work, the audience needs to be sufficiently educated as an outcome of the discussion to ensure the necessary controls are consistently used in their workplace.

      2.3 Environmental Analyst

Another key EHS professional is the EA. EAs, also called environmental scientists or specialists, examine soil, water, and air as part of a concerted effort to protect, clean, and/or ensure its preservation. Based on their assessment of the hazards and risks that may be present, they often capture this information in written reports and can be called upon to present their findings to workplace management, policymakers, and the general public in order to raise the awareness of potential environmental issues that may be faced by these stakeholders. EAs often work for government agencies to help develop legislation that protects the environment from contamination by hazardous materials and pollutants. Other EAs also work within the private sector to ensure compliance with government regulations. They may help to identify and reduce and/or eliminate sources of pollution and the emission of hazardous substances. This effort can include the responsibilities for ensuring that facilities comply with environmental regulations for air, water, wastewater, hazardous materials, and hazardous waste by providing guidance and support to the facility's staff.

      An issue often faced by EAs is that they feel hampered in communicating the risks of the effects of substances on the environment due to the myriad of regulatory requirements that are applicable. The environmental regulations in each of the 50 states in the United States must be as stringent as the federal environmental regulations; however, these regulations can be more stringent than federal regulations and different from those in other states. The same is true for local environmental regulations. EAs must take into consideration the intertwined federal and state regulations, multiple local jurisdictions, as well as internal requirements and sustainability goals. In addition to the risk communication issues that EAs may face in clearly and succinctly unraveling the regulations that may be potentially violated, they may also be hampered by the same type of dilemma faced by IHs and OSs in the workplace. These environmental professionals are often placed in a situation where they need to provide a precautionary advocacy for potentially high hazard issues to an often reluctant and potentially unwilling room of stakeholders. A good risk communication in this situation is to cautiously stoke concern in the audience in the hopes that precautions can be viewed as advantageous, especially if public concern or environmental groups get involved in the process. Alternatively, EAs may be part of an effort to reduce community outrage about factory emissions or groundwater issues that may be perceived as being tied to employees ignoring or mishandling more serious hazards (9).

      2.4 Occupational Physician

      Although these three professions make up the heart of the EHS professions, there are other professions that deserve mentioning as they also face unique as well as common risk communication challenges. From a global perspective, it is the occupational physician (OP) profession that often leads health and safety offices as well as more holistic EHS models. It is often an outcome of national regulatory language that the OP manages the other professions. These can be the same regulations that do not directly include the IH profession in their language, directly hampering the necessary growth of the profession in these countries. This structure is also a by‐product of health‐oriented systems, with the EU as a prime example, that are developed by design within larger corporate structures or are derived as independent offices that are contracted to multiple manufacturing or industrial operations regionally. When it comes to risk communication, the OP has a distinct advantage of working directly with employees that are more likely than not to be an active participant in discussions of potential work‐related health discussions as they have a strongly vested interest their own well‐being and the risks that may compromise their health or safety. OPs also have a major potential disadvantage in that it is more onerous, if not outright unlikely, to inject prevention into their communication with patients as the topic of work‐related risks is often a by‐product of the discovery of existing illness or injuries. Ergonomists often face a similar hurdle in the discussions or work‐related risks as they are often called in to perform an assessment after pain, injury, or musculoskeletal diseases have already occurred. It takes a persuasive risk communication for ergonomists to inject themselves in a preventative manner. The leverage toward controlling and reducing physical exposures is often in balance with the economic disincentive, familiar to corporate board rooms and well known to seasoned EHS professionals, of the potentially high costs often associated with intervention outcomes in the absence of injury and illness. Risk communication strategies must overcome these barriers at all levels.

      2.5 EHS Generalist

The EHS Generalist is a newer breed within the health and safety professions, often as a by‐product of shrinking EHS staff budgets within companies and corporations. Individuals within this type of position may have an education, work experience, or personal preference that focuses one or more of the EHS professions. However, the nature of EHS Generalist positions requires the ability to understand enough of the individual disciplines to assist their employers in achieving and maintaining a comprehensive regulatory compliance. They are just as likely to execute initiatives, programs, procedures, reports, permits, and training within the health and safety realm as they are to contribute to the develop the required environmental regulatory reports and submissions to achieve and maintain standard documentation. In a similar vein, corporations often employ EHS Managers that also assist in a generalist capacity, but often have more responsibility in the development of programs and overall promotion of healthy and safe workplaces. Both EHS Generalists and Managers are often involved in tracking of, and investigation into, work‐related incidents and accidents that are related to workers' compensation as well as regulatory compliance. The risk communication for these responsibilities is both important and potentially complicated, as effectively creating, maintaining, and enforcing regulatory compliance in line with corporate programs requires a depth of knowledge across each of the EHS disciplines that is often elusive, if not impossible, to acquire. Therefore, it is even more important for EHS Generalists and Managers to understand the hurdles and difficulties for risk communication that face each of the individual EHS professions. In doing so, they can help isolate where potential issues may arise in a given profession. This helps them to derive solutions appropriate for a given profession and identify the right communication methods to help ensure work‐related risk discussion points are both understood and retained by stakeholders.

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