Populations at Risk
Authors: Pedersen David H. , Young Randy O. , Rose and Vernon E. 
Published: August 2005

The practice of industrial hygiene and toxicology both involve recognition, as well as anticipation of the potential for occupational health problems. In the anticipation and/or recognition phase, an assessment of the risk to health or well‐being resulting from exposure to an agent (chemical, physical, or biological) is made. This phase usually involves identifying the agents to which workers are or might be exposed; assessing the agents' properties, including toxicity; and understanding the conditions surrounding the use of, or interaction with, the agents. This information allows occupational health and safety professionals to make a preliminary assessment of occupational health risk based on the inherent properties of chemical, physical, or biological agents combined with the potential for contact or exposure under actual use conditions, including environmental level and in‐use exposure control measures. The two basic applications of the anticipation/recognition process can be classified as either individual or aggregate.

The individual process is used by occupational health and safety practitioners who apply anticipation and recognition techniques to the exposure and conditions of exposure prevalent in a single facility or group of facilities under his or her professional jurisdiction. In that process, the individual professional needs an understanding of the toxic properties of those agents associated with these specific workplaces or processes and an understanding of the conditions of exposure existing in those situations. The data necessary for the individual process have been available to the practitioner for quite some time, either through the scientific literature or through investigation in the workplaces under his or her jurisdiction, with the possible historical exception of accurate information regarding the formulation of trade‐named products.

The broader aggregate process of anticipation and recognition is applicable to definable industrial or occupational populations, and is an assessment of the potential risk of these populations for adverse health effects due to occupational exposure to chemical, physical, or biological agents in the workplace. The aggregate approach is common to occupational health and safety researchers, regulatory bodies, and others interested in the extent of exposure to a specific agent or list of agents with known adverse health effects. For example, in the initial stages of an epidemiologic study, researchers might wish to identify populations of workers who are exposed to a specific agent or group of agents. Government agencies need a measure of the potential impact of research or regulatory efforts based on the number of industries and workers impacted when they decide on the priorities to assign to research or regulatory efforts or the development of occupational health standards. This type of data was not available until after the implementation of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, and required several efforts by the federal government.

This aggregate approach to the identification of worker populations at risk due to their occupational exposures to specific individual or grouped chemical agents also serves the general occupational health community by profiling the industries in which exposure may occur, thereby permitting an assessment of the relative potential for specific adverse health effects in selected industries. This type of broad overview is not normally available to the individual occupational health practitioner, and has the potential for improving the practitioner's initial assessment of occupational risk in his or her area of responsibility.