Medication and employment

2019 ◽  
pp. 275-296
Author(s):  
Caroline Swales ◽  
Peter McDowall
Keyword(s):  
Occupational Health ◽  
Adverse Effects ◽  
Road Traffic ◽  
Medication Management ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Health Conditions ◽  
Workplace Health ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Access To Data

Medication allows many people with long-term health conditions to pursue productive employment when they would otherwise be unable to work safely and effectively. However, both short-term and long-term pharmacological treatments can have implications for work. The number of medications taken by individuals has increased; the risk of harm increasing with polypharmacy. The Internet has transformed communications, and practitioners have greater accessibility to updated clinical data with increased communication between specialists. But easier access to data on medication and health conditions for employees has both positive and negative influences. High-profile road traffic fatalities have raised public concerns about the potential adverse effects of medication and of employees not reporting or managing conditions effectively. Occupational health professionals are not regular prescribers. However, they can help to monitor safe use of medications, by observing and recording compliance and adverse effects in relation to workplace health and safety. Greater involvement in employees’ medication management, with onward communication of problems to treating physicians, is required to enable occupational health to participate in medicines optimization.

Identifying Health and Safety Risks for Childcare Workers

AAOHN Journal ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 55 (8) ◽  
pp. 321-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
Belinda J. McGrath
Keyword(s):  
Health Promotion ◽  
Occupational Health ◽  
Workplace Health Promotion ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Workplace Health ◽  
Safety Issues ◽  
Safety Risks ◽  
Health Promotion Programs ◽  
Childcare Workers ◽  
Health And Safety Risks

Childcare workers are exposed to several health and safety risks in their work environment, the most common being infectious diseases, musculoskeletal injuries, accidents, and occupational stress. Pregnant childcare workers have an additional risk of potential harm to the fetus. Occupational health nurses can work collaboratively with childcare workers to reduce these risks and provide workplace health promotion programs. This article explores the occupational health and safety issues for childcare workers and suggests health promotion strategies that could be implemented by occupational health nurses working in this arena.

Restorative Regulation of Criminality at Work in Canada

2020 ◽  
pp. 516-534
Author(s):  
Bruce P Archibald QC
Keyword(s):  
Restorative Justice ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Legal Regulation ◽  
Workplace Health ◽  
Human Capabilities ◽  
Safety Standards ◽  
Criminal Sanctions ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Labour Standards

This chapter suggests a way of enriching the normative theorization of the interface between labour law and criminal law in Canada. It homes in on the role of the criminal law in enforcing worker-protective labour standards, in particular with regard to workplace health and safety. Focusing specially on penal policy in respect of violations of health and safety standards by employing enterprises and by individual members of the staff of those enterprises, this chapter contends that there is real scope for bringing to bear the principles and tenets of restorative justice upon the practice of applying criminal or quasi-criminal sanctions in this regulatory domain. This might generate some more nuanced and creative regulatory approaches than those which are sometimes manifested in high-profile corporate criminal prosecutions and by the imposition of blockbusting fines upon such corporations. Moreover, the chapter argues that certain of the currently much-discussed human capabilities approaches to legal regulation might be deployed to develop and flesh out a methodology of restorative justice in this particular context.

Health Promotion in the Workplace – The Merging of the Paradigms

2005 ◽  
Vol 44 (02) ◽  
pp. 278-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Yassi
Keyword(s):  
Health Promotion ◽  
Occupational Health ◽  
Healthy Lifestyle ◽  
Workplace Health Promotion ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Holistic Approach ◽  
Occupational Health And Safety ◽  
Healthcare Sector ◽  
Workplace Health ◽  
The Individual

Summary Purpose: To synthesize the lessons from both occupational health and health promotion, to improve workplace health. Approach: This article briefly outlines the evolution in defining and understanding health promotion as well as current thinking in occupational health and safety.It also discusses an approach taken in the healthcare sector in British Columbia, Canada, where evidence-based practices and collaboration became the cornerstones to bringing about change and achieve impressive cost-beneficial results in healthcare workforce health. Conclusion: Traditionally, workplace health promotion and occupational health and safety have been two solitudes. Workplace health promotion is rooted in ‘wellness’ and healthy lifestyle choices, while occupational health is heavily dictated by workplace health and safety requirements and legislation. Recently however, there has been increasing recognition of the need for a more holistic approach that focusses on workplace culture, addressing both primary and secondary prevention [1], as well as interventions aimed both at the individual as well as the organisation [2].

scholarly journals O7C.2 Developing a measuring strategy for monitoring and evaluation of a national occupational health intervention programme in great britain (GB)

2019 ◽  
Vol 76 (Suppl 1) ◽  
pp. A64.3-A65
Author(s):  
Yiqun Chen ◽  
Andrew Curran
Keyword(s):  
Occupational Health ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
National Level ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Monitoring And Evaluation ◽  
Work Related ◽  
Measurement Framework ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Over Time

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is the GB regulator for health and safety at work. The HSE Health and Work (H&W) program designs and carries out a wide range of interventions; including inspection, enforcement and other regulatory activities as well as prevention; targeting priority health conditions in high-risk sectors. It is anticipated that long-term, sustainable and coordinated actions developed as part of the program will over time improve awareness, behaviors, control of exposures, and, as a result, prevent work-related ill health in GB workforce.An HSE Measuring Strategy, together with measurement framework and principles, has been developed. The measurement framework draws together data systems, covering Attitudes (A), Behaviors (B), Control of exposures (C), and Disease and work-related ill health reduction (D), based on a simple model to provide evidence required for evaluating the short, medium and long term impacts of the large scale and complex H&W program on the GB health and safety system. The Strategy gives a new focus on measuring behavioral changes and risk reductions; and emphasizes longitudinal measurement designs to assess progress over time.For developing the Strategy, workshops were organized to bring stakeholders across HSE to review existing systems for conducting population surveys, collecting exposure intelligence and occupational health surveillance, which have contributed to forming a long-term vision of fit-for-purpose measurement systems.We will present the development of the Strategy and the plans to implement it with the H&W program, which requires close collaborations between epidemiologists and social researchers, policy makers, and other multidisciplinary regulatory specialists. The lessons learnt will help HSE towards building the right evidence base for monitoring and evaluation of a range of national level intervention programs for work-related ill health prevention.©British Crown copyright (2019)

scholarly journals Measuring Industrial Health Using a Diminished Quality of Life Instrument

Safety ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zuzhen Ji ◽  
Dirk Pons ◽  
John Pearse
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
World Health ◽  
Workplace Health ◽  
Monitoring And Surveillance ◽  
Industrial Health ◽  
Health Organization ◽  
Protective Systems

Historically, the focus of industrial health and safety (H&S) has been on safety and accident avoidance with relatively less attention to long-term occupational health other than via health monitoring and surveillance. The difficulty is the multiple overlapping health consequences that are difficult to separate, measure, and attribute to a source. Furthermore, many health problems occur later, not immediately on exposure, and may be cumulative. Consequently, it is difficult to conclusively identify the cause. Workers may lack knowledge of long-term consequences, and thus not use protective systems effectively. Compounding this is the lack of instruments and methodologies to measure exposure to harm. Historically, the existing risk methodologies for calculating safety risk are based on the construct of consequence and likelihood. However, this may not be appropriate for health, especially for the long-term harm, as both the consequence and likelihood may be indeterminate. This paper develops an instrument to measure the health component of workplace H&S. This is achieved by adapting the established World Health Organization Disability Assessment Schedule (WHODAS) quality of life score to workplace health. Specifically, the method is to identify the likelihood of an exposure incident arising (as estimated by engineering technologists and H&S officers), followed by evaluation of the biological harm consequences. Those consequences are then scored by using the WHODAS 12-item inventory. The result is an assessment of the Diminished Quality of Life (DQL) associated with a workplace hazard. This may then be used to manage the minimization of harm, exposure monitoring, and the design of safe systems of work.

Leaving it up to the Workers: Sociological Perspective on the Management of Health and Safety in Small Workplaces

1992 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 689-704 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joan M. Eakin
Keyword(s):  
Occupational Health ◽  
Health Behavior ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Business Owners ◽  
Individual Autonomy ◽  
Small Business Owners ◽  
Workplace Health ◽  
Workplace Hazards ◽  
Management Intervention ◽  
The Social

Small workplaces present particular challenges for the promotion of occupational health and safety. However, little is known about the social organization of work in such settings and how it relates to matters of health and safety. The research on which this article is based relates patterns of occupational health behavior to the nature of social relationships within the workplace. From a qualitative analysts of interviews with 53 small business owners, the author describes the most common approach to managing workplace health and safety: leaving it up to the workers. This posture is explained in terms of the owners' perception of risk, particularly their understanding of workplace hazards, and their assessment of the social costs of ignoring or addressing such issues. Owners tended to discount or normalize health hazards, and to believe that management intervention in employee health behavior was paternalistic and inconsistent with prevailing patterns of labor relations and norms respecting individual autonomy. Many owners understood health and safety not as a bureaucratic function of management but as a personal moral enterprise in which they did not have legitimate authority. The conceptualization of the owners' responses in terms of “social rationality” has implications for addressing problems of health and safety in small workplaces.

scholarly journals Drafting a Health and Safety Guide for Construction Forensics Practitloners

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 71-73
Author(s):  
A. E. Fomenko
Keyword(s):  
Occupational Health ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Occupational Health And Safety ◽  
Workplace Health ◽  
Workplace Health And Safety ◽  
Expert Community

Presented is a draft occupational health and safety manual for construction forensics practitioners. The draft guide was developed with the purpose of improving the reliability of workplace health and safety arrangements in construction forensics units within the system of the Russian Ministry of Justice. The expert community is invited to consider the proposed draft document.

Engagement in Health and Safety at the Workplace

2016 ◽  
pp. 265-289 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicola Magnavita
Keyword(s):  
Occupational Health ◽  
Older Workers ◽  
Occupational Medicine ◽  
Occupational Diseases ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Chronically Ill ◽  
Participatory Ergonomics ◽  
Professional Activities ◽  
Term Management

Dramatic changes in the age structure of the population have led to a rise in the age of retirement. An ageing working population may be a problem for companies and for their health and safety services that must face the long-term management of active, chronically ill workers. For sustainability reasons the discipline of occupational medicine must be replaced by occupational health, which not only combats occupational diseases, but actively works to promote the health of older workers. More in general, occupational health has a strong interest in promoting engagement in professional activities. Shifting from a reactive to a proactive logic will take time and require a big effort on the part of employers, employees and health and safety staff in order to develop participatory ergonomics and best health promotion practices in the workplace.

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