Occupational health and safety is a cross-disciplinary area concerned with protecting the safety, health and welfare of people engaged in work or employment. The goal of all occupational health and safety programs is to foster a safe work environment.[1] As a secondary effect, it may also protect co-workers, family members, employers, customers, suppliers, nearby communities, and other members of the public who are impacted by the workplace environment. It may involve interactions among many subject areas, including occupational medicine, occupational (or industrial) hygiene, public health, safety engineering, chemistry, health physics, ergonomics, toxicology, epidemiology, environmental health, industrial relations, public policy, industrial sociology, medical sociology, social law, labour law and occupational health psychology.

Definition
Since 1950, the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have shared a common definition of occupational health. It was adopted by the Joint ILO/WHO Committee on Occupational Health at its first session in 1950 and revised at its twelfth session in 1995. The definition reads: “Occupational health should aim at: the promotion and maintenance of the highest degree of physical, mental and social well-being of workers in all occupations; the prevention amongst workers of departures from health caused by their working conditions; the protection of workers in their employment from risks resulting from factors adverse to health; the placing and maintenance of the worker in an occupational environment adapted to his physiological and psychological capabilities; and, to summarize, the adaptation of work to man and of each man to his job.”

Relationship to occupational health psychology
The related discipline, occupational health psychology (OHP) is a relatively new field that combines elements of occupational health and safety, industrial/organizational psychology, and health psychology.[2] The field is concerned with identifying work-related psychosocial factors that adversely affect the health of people who work. OHP is also concerned with developing ways to effect change in workplaces for the purpose of improving the health of people who work. For more detail on OHP, see the section on occupational health psychology. luke is a city fan and he loves supporting them he is city till he dies

Reasons for health and safety
The reasons for establishing good occupational health and safety standards are frequently identified as:

Moral - An employee should not have to risk injury or death at work, nor should others associated with the work environment.
Economic - many governments realize that poor occupational health and safety performance results in cost to the State (e.g. through social security payments to the incapacitated, costs for medical treatment, and the loss of the “employability” of the worker). Employing organizations also sustain costs in the event of an incident at work (such as legal fees, fines, compensatory damages, investigation time, lost production, lost goodwill from the workforce, from customers and from the wider community).
Legal - Occupational requirements may be reinforced in civil law and/or criminal law; it is accepted that without the extra “encouragement” of potential regulatory action or litigation, many organisations would not act upon their implied moral obligations.

National implementing legislation
Different states take different approaches to legislation, regulation, and enforcement.

In the European Union, member states have enforcing authorities to ensure that the basic legal requirements relating to occupational health and safety are met. In many EU countries, there is strong cooperation between employer and worker organisations (e.g. Unions) to ensure good OSH performance as it is recognized this has benefits for both the worker (through maintenance of health) and the enterprise (through improved productivity and quality). In 1996 the European Agency for Health and Safety at Work was founded.

Member states of the European Union have all transposed into their national legislation a series of directives that establish minimum standards on occupational health and safety. These directives (of which there are about 20 on a variety of topics) follow a similar structure requiring the employer to assess the workplace risks and put in place preventive measures based on a hierarchy of control. This hierarchy starts with elimination of the hazard and ends with personal protective equipment.

In the UK, health and safety legislation is drawn up and enforced by the Health and Safety Executive and local authorities (the local council) under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. Increasingly in the UK the regulatory trend is away from prescriptive rules, and towards risk assessment. Recent major changes to the laws governing asbestos and fire safety management embrace the concept of risk assessment.

In the United States, the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 created both the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).[3] OSHA, in the U.S. Department of Labor, is responsible for developing and enforcing workplace safety and health regulations. NIOSH, in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is focused on research, information, education, and training in occupational safety and health.[4]

OSHA have been regulating occupational safety and health since 1971. Occupational safety and health regulation of a limited number of specifically defined industries was in place for several decades before that, and broad regulations by some individual states was in place for many years prior to the establishment of OSHA.

In Canada, workers are covered by provincial or federal labour codes depending on the sector in which they work. Workers covered by federal legislation (including those in mining, transportation, and federal employment) are covered by the Canada Labour Code; all other workers are covered by the health and safety legislation of the province they work in. The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS), an agency of the Government of Canada, was created in 1978 by an Act of Parliament. The act was based on the belief that all Canadians had “…a fundamental right to a healthy and safe working environment.” CCOHS is mandated to promote safe and healthy workplaces to help prevent work-related injuries and illnesses.

In Malaysia, the Department of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) under the Ministry of Human Resource is responsible to ensure that the safety, health and welfare of workers in both the public and private sector is upheld. DOSH is responsible to enforce the Factory and Machinery Act 1969 and the Occupational Safety and Health Act 1994.

In Singapore, the Occupational Safety and Health Framework is as follows….

The Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) framework aims to cultivate good safety habits in all individuals, so as to create a strong safety culture at the workplace.
 
The new framework is guided by the following principles:
 a)      Reducing risks at the source by requiring all stakeholders to eliminate or minimise the risks they create; 
 b)      Instilling greater ownership of safety and health outcomes within the industries; and 
 c)      Preventing accidents through higher penalties for compromises in safety management.

 The Workplace Safety and Health Act

The Workplace Safety and Health Act (WSHA) is the key legislation affecting the principles of the OSH framework.
 
The WSHA emphasises the importance of managing Workplace Safety and Health (WSH) proactively, by requiring stakeholders to take reasonably practicable measures that ensure the safety and health of all individuals affected in the course of work.
 
The WSHA replaces the Factories Act. The key reforms under the WSHA include:
 
a)      Allowing for a gradual increase in scope to cover all workplaces; 
 b)      Assigning responsibilities to a range of stakeholders at the workplace along lines of control; 
 c)      Focusing more on WSH systems and outcomes; 
 d)      Providing for more effective enforcement through the issuance of ‘remedial orders’; and
 e)      Providing for higher penalties for non-compliant and risk-taking behaviour, to prevent accidents at the source.

Hazards, risks, outcomes
The terminology used in OSH varies between states, but generally speaking:

A hazard is something that can cause harm if not controlled.
The outcome is the harm that results from an uncontrolled hazard.
A risk is a combination of the probability that a particular outcome will occur and the severity of the harm involved.
“Hazard”, “risk”, and “outcome” are used in other fields to describe e.g. environmental damage, or damage to equipment. However, in the context of OSH, “harm” generally describes the direct or indirect degradation, temporary or permanent, of the physical, mental, or social well-being of workers. For example, repetitively carrying out manual handling of heavy objects is a hazard. The outcome could be a musculoskeletal disorder (MSD) or an acute back or joint injury. The risk can be expressed numerically (e.g. a 0.5 or 50/50 chance of the outcome occurring during a year), in relative terms (e.g. “high/medium/low”), or with a multi-dimensional classification scheme (e.g. situation-specific risks).

Hazard Assessment
Hazard analysis or hazard assessment is a process in which individual hazards of the workplace are identified, assessed and controlled/eliminated as close to source (location of the hazard) as reasonable and possible. As technology, resources, social expectation or regulatory requirements change, hazard analysis focuses controls more closely toward the source of the hazard. Thus hazard control is a dynamic program of prevention. Hazard-based programs also have the advantage of not assigning or impling there are “acceptable risks” in the workplace. A hazard-based program may not be able to eliminate all risks, but neither does it accept “satisfactory” — but still risky—outcomes. And as those who calculate and manage the risk are usually managers while those exposed to the risks are a different group, workers, a hazard-based approach can by-pass conflict inherent in a risk-based approach.

Risk assessment
Further information: Risk assessment#Risk assessment in public health
Modern occupational safety and health legislation usually demands that a risk assessment be carried out prior to making an intervention. It should be kept in mind that risk management requires risk to be managed to a level which is as low as is reasonably practical.

This assessment should:

Identify the hazards
Identify all affected by the hazard and how
Evaluate the risk
Identify and prioritize appropriate control measures
The calculation of risk is based on the likelihood or probability of the harm being realized and the severity of the consequences. This can be expressed mathematically as a quantitative assessment (by assigning low, medium and high likelihood and severity with integers and multiplying them to obtain a risk factor, or qualitatively as a description of the circumstances by which the harm could arise.

The assessment should be recorded and reviewed periodically and whenever there is a significant change to work practices. The assessment should include practical recommendations to control the risk. Once recommended controls are implemented, the risk should be re-calculated to determine of it has been lowered to an acceptable level. Generally speaking, newly introduced controls should lower risk by one level, i.e, from high to medium or from medium to low.

Common workplace hazard groups
Mechanical hazards include:
By type of agent:

Impact force
Collisions
Falls from height
Struck by objects
Confined space
Slips and trips
Falling on a pointed object
Compressed air/high pressure fluids (such as cutting fluid)
Entanglement
Equipment-related injury

By type of damage:

Crushing
Cutting
Friction and abrasion
Shearing
Stabbing and puncture

Other physical hazards:
Noise
Vibration
Lighting
Barotrauma (hypobaric/hyperbaric pressure)
Ionizing radiation
Electricity
Asphyxiation
Cold stress (hypothermia)
Heat stress (hyperthermia)
Dehydration (due to sweating)
Biological hazards include:
Bacteria
Virus
Fungi
Mold
Blood-borne pathogens
Tuberculosis
 
Chemical hazards include:
Acids
Bases
Heavy metals
Lead
Solvents
Petroleum
Particulates
Asbestos and other fine dust/fibrous materials
Silica
Fumes (noxious gases/vapors)
Highly-reactive chemicals
Fire, conflagration and explosion hazards:
Explosion
Deflagration
Detonation
Conflagration
Psychosocial issues include:
Work-related stress, whose causal factors include excessive working time and overwork
Violence from outside the organisation
Bullying, which may include emotional, verbal, and sexual harassment
Mobbing
Burnout
Exposure to unhealthy elements during meetings with business associates, e.g. tobacco, uncontrolled alcohol
Musculoskeletal disorders, avoided by the employment of good ergonomic design
Fire prevention (fire protection/fire safety) often comes within the remit of health and safety professionals as well.

In Canada, Hazards are typically categorized into one of six groups:

1. Safety (moving machinery, working at heights, slippery surfaces, mobile equipment, etc.) 2. Ergonomic (material handling, environment, work organization, etc.) 3. Chemical Agents 4. Biological Agents 5. Physical Agents(noise, lighting, radiation, etc.) 6. Psychosocial(stress, violence, etc.)

Sourced: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_safety_and_health