scholarly journals Climate Change Impacts and Workforce Development Needs in Federal Region X: A Qualitative Study of Occupational Health and Safety Professionals’ Perceptions

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 1513
Author(s):  
Katherine M. Pedersen ◽  
Tania M. Busch Isaksen ◽  
Marissa G. Baker ◽  
Noah Seixas ◽  
Nicole A. Errett
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Occupational Health ◽  
Workforce Development ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Climate Change Impacts ◽  
Occupational Health And Safety ◽  
The United States ◽  
Key Informant ◽  
Worker Health And Safety ◽  
And Training

Climate change is considered one of the top health threats in the United States. This research sought to (1) to understand the perceptions of occupational health and safety (OHS) professionals regarding the impacts of climate-related hazards on OHS in Region X, and (2) to explore the ideas of these OHS professionals regarding the content of future training programs that would better prepare OHS professionals to identify and mitigate climate-related hazards in Region X. Key informant (KI) interviews with 17 OHS professionals familiar with the climate-related hazards and impacts to OHS in Region X were coded and thematically analyzed. Climate hazards, social and economic impacts from climate-related hazards, and sector-specific worker and workplace impacts from climate-related hazards were described as having interacting relationships that influenced worker health and safety impacts. KIs further described how workplace controls could be used to mitigate OHS impacts of climate-related hazards, and how training of the OHS workforce could influence the ability to successfully implement such controls. Our findings suggest that OHS impacts are sector-specific, influenced by social and economic factors, and can be mitigated through workplace controls designed and implemented by a trained OHS workforce. The findings from this work should inform future educational and training programming and additional research and translation activities in the region, while our approach can inform other regions as they develop regionally specific OHS climate change training and programming.

scholarly journals Climate Change and Occupational Health and Safety in a Temperate Climate: Potential Impacts and Research Priorities in Quebec, Canada

2013 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ariane ADAM-POUPART ◽  
France LABR^|^Egrave;CHE ◽  
Audrey SMARGIASSI ◽  
Patrice DUGUAY ◽  
Marc-Antoine BUSQUE ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Occupational Health ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Research Priorities ◽  
Occupational Health And Safety ◽  
Temperate Climate

scholarly journals 1.E. Workshop: Comparative Public Health: Politics, science, and professionalism

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (Supplement_4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Occupational Health ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Health Systems ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Occupational Health And Safety ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Health Systems

Abstract Look around EUPHA, or any other public health conference. Public health is difficult to define, in theory and in practice. Its boundaries are all blurred, whether with medicine, schools, environmental protection or workplace safety inspectorates. Too often, we overstate the similarities between public health systems among countries. Efforts to promote networks, good practice, and even basic coordination have been undermined for decades by misunderstandings born of different educational, organizational, financial and political systems. The lack of comparison, and comparative political analysis in particular, also means that countries can have very similar debates about the proper nature and scope of public health, an about who is to blame for deficiencies, without awareness of when they are distinctive and when they are actually part of larger trends. This project aims to identify and explain variation in the scope and organization of public health systems in selected high-income countries. Based on a formalized comparative historical analysis of Austria, France, Germany, Poland, the United Kingdom and the United States, researchers in the study first mapped the various axes of divergence: workforce composition, organization, levels of government, relationship to medicine, and the extent to which public health encompassed adjacent areas such as environmental health and occupational health and safety. For each country we then followed both case studies (communicable disease control including vaccines, HIV/AIDS, tobacco control, diet and nutrition, occupational health and safety) as well as the legislative history of the public health field in order to identify its changing organization and scope. It then identifies the relative role of historical legacies, changing science, burden of disease and politics in explaining patterns of both divergence and convergence. This workshop presents four country specific case studies (France, Germany, United Kingdom and the United States) that identify the most important forms of variation and the political, scientific and professional drivers of convergence and divergence. Key messages Political organization and scope as images of public health are grossly under-researched and nonexistent in a comparative nature. Understanding the scope and organization of public health in different countries will permit better lesson-drawing and identification of relevant and effective levers of change.

scholarly journals Education and Training in Global Occupational Health and Safety: A Perspective on New Pathways to Sustainable Development

2018 ◽  
Vol 84 (3) ◽  
pp. 538-540 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matteo Paganelli ◽  
Egidio Madeo ◽  
Ismail Nabeel ◽  
Luigi Isaia Lecca ◽  
Ilaria Pilia ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Occupational Health ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Occupational Health And Safety ◽  
Education And Training ◽  
And Training

SOCIAL ENREPRENEURSHIP: IMPACT OF OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY (OHS) FACTORS ON WORKERS’ BEHAVIOR IN DIFFERENT CONSTRUCTION SECTORS IN OMAN

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Viswanadham Silaparasetti ◽  
G V. R. Srinivasarao ◽  
Firdouse Rahman Khan
Keyword(s):  
Occupational Health ◽  
Construction Projects ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Occupational Health And Safety ◽  
Simple Random Sampling ◽  
Construction Workers ◽  
Social Entrepreneurs ◽  
Management Commitment ◽  
Free Environment ◽  
And Training

PURPOSEThis paper critically analyzes and assesses the various factors of occupational health and safety (OHS), and elucidate the factors affecting construction workers’ behavior in different construction projects of Oman. It aims to create Occupational Health and Safety awareness in construction workers working for Social Entrepreneurs in Oman.DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACHTwo hundred and fifty-two construction workers from various projects were selected based on a simple random sampling basis, and the data was collected through a well-defined questionnaire.FINDINGSThe study shows that workers favor communication in the improvement of workers’ behavior in the industrial and infrastructure construction projects.Education and training help in capacity building and skills development and contributes towards sustainable positive OHS result in petrochemical construction projects. Management commitment plays a major part to maintain a sustained hazard free environment in building construction projects. The study also shows that the Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) factors –OHS policies, health care, communication, management commitment, education and training and workers’ behavior, have a direct impact on health and safety results towards social entrepreneurship of creating awareness in the construction sectors of Oman.RESEARCH LIMITATIONS/ IMPLICATIONSA model named Construction Industries Influencing Factors Framework (CIIFF) Model, has been developed with the orientation of workers’ behavior which can be developed further making improvements in the existing mechanism and the factors influencing can be dealt with wider procedures to ensure improvements.SOCIAL IMPLICATIONSThe model may help in creating tools that are more effective to reduce Occupational Health and Safety related accidents and property damages in a construction project. 

The Determinants of Social Policy a Case Study: Regulating Health and Safety at the Workplace in Sweden

1983 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 517-561 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vicente Navarro
Keyword(s):  
Occupational Health ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Important Determinant ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Occupational Health And Safety ◽  
The United States ◽  
Regulatory Agencies ◽  
Historical Evolution ◽  
The U.S

This article presents an analysis and critique of the “technocratic” view of occupational health and safety policies, which sees the values of the personnel of the “postindustrial” regulatory agencies as the most important determinant of those policies. An alternate position is put forth which explains those occupational health and safety policies as primarily the result of different degrees of political power of the two major classes (capital and labor) and the set of influences exerted on the regulatory agencies by the instruments (e.g., political parties, unions, trade organizations) of those classes. It is shown how an analysis of the historical evolution of those classes in Sweden and their conflict in both civil and political societies better explains the Swedish occupational health and safety policies than the mere analysis of the regulators' views. It is concluded that the occupational health and safety policies in Sweden are not identical to the U.S. policies–as the “technocratic” theorists assume–but rather they offer more protection to the workers than the U.S. ones. This situation is a result of labor's greater power in Sweden than in the United States. The different class formations and class behavior in both societies are compared, and the implications of this comparison for occupational health and safety policies are discussed.

The Implications of Work Organization for Occupational Health Policy: The Case of Canada

1989 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 157-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Sass
Keyword(s):  
Occupational Health ◽  
Work Environment ◽  
Work Group ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Work Organization ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Occupational Health And Safety ◽  
Worker Rights ◽  
Worker Health And Safety ◽  
The Right

This article examines occupational health and safety developments in Canada during the decade of the 1970s when most government jurisdictions replaced former factory Acts with new health and safety legislation recognizing the right of workers to be involved in work environment matters. During the latter part of the 1970s, health and safety “activists” and trade unionists began to perceive the need for a wider conception of occupational health and safety. Canadian reformers were influenced by Scandinavian developments, especially the research of Dr. Bertil Gardell and his associates. Unfortunately, during the late 1970s Canada experienced a recession and a political shift to conservatism. Consequently, during the 1980s there have been no meaningful workplace health and safety reforms. Further, the article suggests that there is strong resistance by management and government to extension of worker rights in occupational health and safety. All major political parties ground their work environment policies in utilitarian concepts that trade worker health and safety for economic considerations. The author, therefore, argues for the development of an “ethics of the work environment” based upon egalitarian principles, and the transformation of the primary work group into a community of workers who can shape the character of their work environment. Ideally, the relationship between the major “actors” in our industrial relations system ought to be based on obligation instead of the present language of worker protest based on rights. Nonetheless, there is a need to extend and deepen worker rights in the workplace. Finally, the author argues that the appropriate relationship in industry to reflect a democratic work environment is “partnership”–the coming together of the primary work groups as equals.

Workplace Health and Safety: Report from Canada

1986 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 565-582 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Sass
Keyword(s):  
Occupational Health ◽  
Work Organization ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Occupational Health And Safety ◽  
Criminal Prosecution ◽  
Workers Compensation ◽  
Workplace Health ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
Workplace Health And Safety ◽  
Worker Health And Safety

This article represents a critical analysis of the major policy responses to workplace health and safety in Canada. It examines the deficiencies inherent in the legislative development of Joint Health and Safety Committees in most Canadian jurisdictions, the limitations regarding standard-setting of worker exposure to contaminants, and disincentive for employers to positively improve the workplace because of Workers Compensation legislation. Collective bargaining agreements in Canada have had only limited positive effects, while the ultimate legal sanction of criminal prosecution by the regulatory agencies has weakened enforcement and compliance of existing regulations. There has never been a successful criminal prosecution of an employer in Canada, even for multiple deaths. The article suggests the following four reasons for this “underdevelopment” of occupational health and safety in Canada: (1) the concealment of the dimension of the incidence of industrial disease based on Workers Compensation Board statistics; (2) the application of an incorrect theory of causation of both industrial disease and injury by both managers and government administrators of occupational health and safety programs; (3) the resistance of both senior and middle managers against increased worker participation in both work organization and job design questions; and (4) the general “moral underdevelopment,” rather than ignorance, of managers in favoring economic considerations or values at the expense of worker health and safety. In light of the magnitude of the problem and the deficiencies of existing policy approaches, the author proposes the need for greater workplace democratization of production and industry as a necessary and sufficient reform of workplace health and safety.

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