Occupational Health Flashcards
What is occupational health?
“Occupational health deals with all aspects of health and safety in the workplace and has a strong focus on primary prevention of hazards. The health of the workers has several determinants, including risk factors at the workplace leading to cancers, accidents, musculoskeletal diseases, respiratory diseases, hearing loss, circulatory diseases, stress related disorders and communicable diseases and others.”
Wha t is OSHA
Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)
main government agency that says what is considered an appropriate working condition
What requires employers to legally be required to protect workers from hazards
OSHA
must be reasonable
How does OSHA enforce its standards?
Visits - announced to unannounced
What can trigger an OSHA referal?
Complaint
Serious death that happened at work
What is the result of OSHA?
Worker deaths and injuries are down
even though it’s annoying to comply, it’s important!
What is occupational health?
Promote and maintain maximum physical, mental, and social well-being of workers in all occupations
“Adapt the work to the workers and each worker to his or her job”
PPE, special training, modification etc
Role of an occupational health provider
To assess whether the adaptation in work conditions will occur automatically, or if any accommodations are necessary.
Can set out regulations
What is the MC occupational injury in WV
Transportation
Contact with objects/equipment
What is a fitness to work examination?
Objective assessment of the PHYSICAL and MENTAL health of employees in relation to requirements and working conditions of specific jobs
Some jobs have different physical and mental requirements
aka fit to duty
When do you do a fit-to-work exam?
When an employee starts a new position requiring certain mental/physical standards of health to perform duties safely and successfully
As part of a regularly scheduled follow-up (e.g., yearly) to ensure an employee still meets the physical and mental standards of health to safely and successfully perform his or her job
To excuse an employee from his or her job, temporarily or permanently, as a result of a new-onset illness, injury or life event or newly diagnosed chronic disease
When an employee remains away from work and must be assessed for continuing short-term or long-term disability payment or worker’s compensation
When an employee is returning to work after being taken off work for a period of time due to an illness, injury, life event
At the patient’s request
What are some ethical dilemma of fit-to-work exams?
Employers can’t deny an applicant due to physical/emotional conditions
HOWEVER
Job offer can be contingent upon passing an exam that:
Ensures the employee will be able to perform the job
Ensures the employee will not be a hazard to self or others while working in that job
When can an a job application be excused?
The applicant can be refused if:
The health of the employee is not compatible with working conditions,AND
Working conditions/job requirements cannot be reasonably altered
What is health and safety risk used in fit-to-work exams?
Probability of occurrence of adverse event to worker, coworkers or public
Needs to be relatively high to exclude - no overprotection of worker
What is physical capacity used in fit-to-work exams?
Fitness for duty and physical fitness
Avoid considering non-essential job functions to avoid discrimination
Psych - often only done if known history of psychiatric disease, LOA for psychiatric reasons, or jobs with high psychiatric demands
Employment and earning capacity
Employer has the right to expect employees to attend work regularly
Does this justify discrimination against non-disabled candidates with diseases that increase the odds they will use more sick leave?
asthma, obesity, smoking, migraines
