What is Industrial Hygiene? Importance and application of a Plan
Some jobs may have certain factors that are harmful to our health. Industrial hygiene, within the Occupational Risks Prevention (ORP) is used to anticipate the different damages that arise during the work activity. For this, the consequences must be identified, controlled and evaluated.
This hygiene not only deals with the mental and physical safety of employees, but also with the damage that bad hygiene can cause in the environment of the organization.
How to apply this hygiene and how important is it? Next, all the details are provided.
Industrial hygiene: importance and application in the ORP
We will see its importance in the first place and secondly its application. Having always in mind an adequate occupational risks prevention.
The importance of industrial hygiene
This hygiene comprises a complex system of principles and rules that are focused on recognizing and controlling risk factors, it manages to avoid employee health problems and employee safety problems.
In addition, not having adequate hygiene causes a reduction of productivity in the company. Endemic or epidemic cases caused by poor hygiene will increase at the same time.
Besides, the importance of this hygiene is beyond the protection of the workers, it also concerns the clients and the image that the clients have about the organization.
How to apply it through different methods
In order to prevent diseases and risks derived from bad practices, it is necessary to apply different actions to keep controlled the possible contaminants:
1. Identify. The first step is to detect the pollutants that you work with. These can be noises, vibrations or substances. From this point, you can start work in the prevention.
2. Measurement. Secondly, the quantities of pollutants must be measured. The measurements made with some kind of instruments must be appropriate to the type of contamination.
3. Evaluation. This will allow determining if the situation is correct in the company. To do this, the results must be compared with current legislation. If the results are found within the established limits, the ideal is to periodically review the levels to carry out checks.
4. Control. If there are some risks, actions must be taken for each pollutant in order to achieve a reduction or to eliminate the possible deterioration of workers’ health risk.
Investing in improving industrial hygiene is vital to get the company to increase its productivity and to reduce costs resulting from sick leave. On the other hand, the law obliges to protect company employees and, as far as possible, to reduce the chances of accidents.