The horrific dangers facing industrial workers in Illinois, Indiana, and the rest of the country are far from new. They are well-known by employers, their insurance carriers, and others with possession, custody, or control of aspects of the jobsite with duties to keep people safe. In fact, as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) explains, Hippocrates wrote of lead toxicity dangers facing miners as early as the fourth century BC, and in the 1st Century AD Pliny the Elder created one of the first known pieces of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) with his animal bladder face mask for Roman workers to wear when working with zinc and sulfur.
Understanding how to keep workers safe has been studied literally for centuries. Bernardo Ramazzini is known as the “father of industrial medicine” because of his 18th Century work entitled, De Morbis Artificum Diatriba (The Diseases of Workmen). The next century saw the passage of the English Factory Acts (1833) by the British Parliament which is considered to be the “first effective legislative acts in the field of industrial safety.” These laws provided workers with damages in the aftermath of on-the-job injuries.
By 1948, every state in the United States had some type of governmental industrial hygiene program and most had corresponding worker’s compensation laws. Which leads us to three cornerstone pieces of federal legislation designed to protect workers from work accident injuries: (1) the Metal and Nonmetallic Mines Safety Act of 1966; (2) the Federal Coal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1969; and (3) the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (Act).
- For details on this historical background of worker injury protection read, DEPARTMENT OF LABOR WASHINGTON DC OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH ADMINISTRATION. “OSHA Informational Booklet on Industrial Hygiene.” (1998).
In this route through history, the field of understanding industrial dangers facing workers and how to keep people safe in hazardous worksites has become known as “industrial hygiene.”
What is Industrial Hygiene?
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) defines industrial hygiene as:
“…the science of anticipating, recognizing, evaluating, and controlling workplace conditions that may cause workers’ injury or illness. Industrial hygienists use environmental monitoring and analytical methods to detect the extent of worker exposure and employ engineering, work practice controls, and other methods to control potential health hazards.”
Today, employers and others in positions of control over workplaces in this country are encouraged to invite industrial hygiene studies and practices into their operations. The encouragement is multi-faceted; for employers, industrial hygiene provides them with things like:
- Keeping employers safe from accidents, injuries, and occupational illness;
- More productivity (and therefore efficiency and revenue);
- Less turnover of workers (and reduce the cost involved with the need to train new hires, etc.);
- Enhanced compliance with safety regulations (avoiding fines, lawsuits, and loss of business goodwill);
- Enhanced compliance with environmental regulations (avoiding fines, lawsuits, and loss of business goodwill);
- Lower risk of liability costs associated with worksite accidents and illnesses (lawsuits, insurance claims); and
- Long-term savings in lowered insurance premiums and worksite efficiency (which arguably outweighs the initial investment expense in industrial hygiene expert implementation)
Read, “Best Practices to Consider for Industrial Hygiene,” written by Elis Enano and published by OHS Online on November 15, 2023.
From the perspective of safety agencies and advocates of worker victims and their loved ones, it is discouraging to recognize that the majority of incentives for worker safety programs lies with employer concerns over costs and profits rather than the moral and ethical considerations of keeping people safe from harm.
Focus of Industrial Hygiene Experts: Identify and Eliminate Workplace Hazards
What do industrial hygiene experts do? Harvard University explains their job as professionals dedicated to “…the anticipation, recognition, evaluation, communication, and control of environmental stressors in the workplace that may result in injury, illness, impairment, or otherwise affect the wellbeing of workers and community members.” Read, “Industrial Hygiene: Keeping Workers Healthy and Safe,” written by Erica Hersh and published by Harvard University School of Public Health.
These people are professional safety experts. They come into the workplace to discover unknown risks and to point out known hazards. They also offer suggestions on how to change things to remove the dangers or at a minimum, reduce as much as possible the risk that workers must face with a particular situation.
Industrial hygiene experts work to make things safer for workers in our dangerous industrial jobsites.
These safety professionals will use their education and expertise to develop a specific workplace analysis which management can use to make things safer for the workers. These industrial hygiene experts may be hired for the project from an outside consulting firm, or some companies may find it advantageous to hire their own internal expert to monitor their particular industrial safety and health issues.
Their work is complex and will vary depending not only upon the industry but upon the particular worksite. Steel fabrication will have different risks than a warehouse distribution facility, for instance.
However, most industrial hygiene studies will compile an analysis of the following risks facing the industrial workers on that particular jobsite:
- Air Contaminants
- Chemical Hazards
- Biological Hazards
- Physical Hazards
- Ergonomic Hazards.
Industrial hygienists and other experts in aspects of industrial hygiene are also used by OSHA in the agency’s evaluation of industrial jobs for worker risks and hazards as part of the creation of federal safety standards. Additionally, a great many of the OSHA officers that enter industrial worksites in Illinois and Indiana to confirm compliance with safety laws (or the lack thereof) are industrial hygienists.
How Industrial Hygiene Helps Keep Workers Safe from Accident Injuries
There are several types of industrial hygiene professionals, with jobs and levels of expertise varying depending upon the industry and the particular safety focus. These include:
Regulatory Affairs Specialist: For instance, there are industrial hygienists who work to make sure that the particular employer is complying with the safety regulations that apply to their operations. These are Regulatory Affairs Specialists. They may work with a large manufacturing company to make sure their policies are meeting OSHA standards, for example. They will also point out where changes need to be made because workers are being endangered by breaches of regulatory law.
Industrial Safety Director: A powerful player in industrial hygiene is the industrial safety director. These are the company employees who are tasked with internal management of the workplace safety and health programs and protocols. For instance, on a large commercial construction site, a general contractor’s safety director may routinely walk the place looking for any hazards and then making sure changes are made to keep workers safe.
Industrial Hygienist: The industrial hygienists are the scientists that take data from worksites and draft analysis reports. They may work for large employers in a variety of industries (e.g., mining, manufacturing, construction) or for safety agencies or safety advocates.
For more, read “5 High-Paying Industrial Hygiene Jobs,” published by Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine on June 16, 2023.
For each of these job titles, there are similar considerations that focus upon worker safety and keeping people from being hurt or killed in a work accident. They will look for things like:
- materials used by each worker
- material found on each worksite
- materials found on the entire workplace
- physical layout of each worksite
- physical layout of the entire workplace
- processes involved in the industrial operations
- proximity of workers to each identified risk
- tasks performed by each worker
- temperature exposure and risks
- weather exposure and risks.
Using their expertise, these safety professionals identify the dangers that each worker faces on the job and how to remove or reduce their risk of being hurt on the job.
For more, read “The 5 Principles of Industrial Hygiene,” published by Chem Scape on July 28, 2021.
After an Accident: Industrial Hygiene Expert’s Analysis of Worksite Safety Failures
Of course, these industrial hygiene experts are vital to preventing accidents on the industrial worksites of Illinois and Indiana. Workers should be aware of safety professionals who have studied and built the safety programs and protocols for their workplace. Maybe they are outsiders who have come into the operation to make their recommendations and then management is left to implement them. In larger operations, there may be full-time safety professionals with industrial hygiene expertise that are on the payroll to keep things safe.
Either way, the first contribution of an industrial hygiene expert is to prevent workers from being hurt on the job. The second contribution is after there has been a serious or fatal work accident.
It is through the help of an industrial hygiene expert that an injured worker victim and their loved ones can understand exactly how the work accident happened and what parties are responsible for the incident and its consequences.
Industrial hygiene experts are at the ready to assist workers in their claims for justice with an independent investigation and review of a catastrophic work accident. They can not only help in the worker victim’s internal and independent investigation, but they can provide expert opinion testimony in any claims proceeding or lawsuit seeking justice for work accident injuries.
Justice for Workers Hurt or Killed in Industrial Accidents in Illinois or Indiana
Industrial workers in Illinois and Indiana are known to be working in unsafe working conditions where dangers remain, and preventable accidents are causing serious injuries or death. For hundreds of years, the need to protect workers on industrial job sites has been recognized – and still, in the 21st Century, there are a great many employers who continue to put profits over people. This is a reality that must be changed.
For worker victims and their loved ones, it is vital to be aware that they have a legal right to know why any severe work accident occurred and what parties may have legal liability for the resulting harm both to the worker and the victim’s family members.
No worker needs to take the word of their company representative or an insurance adjuster for why they got hurt. It is through the expertise of an industrial hygiene expert that the worker victim can confirm how the preventable accident happened from a scientific perspective. State or federal laws will then define the legal breaches of care and safety that establish damage liability for those who are responsible.
For more, read:
- New OSHA National Emphasis Program Targets Dangerous Warehousing Industry
- Fighting Fatal Falls on the Job: OSHA’s First National Emphasis Program
- What Is The Most Dangerous Job in Indiana and Illinois?
- Death on the Job: Industrial Accident Fatalities in Illinois and Indiana
- Workers Beware: BLS Reports Highest US Worker Death Rate in 5 Years.
Industries in our part of the country, especially construction, manufacturing, and warehousing, are particularly dangerous for our workers who face horrific risks of life-altering harm or loss of life. Please be careful out there!
