page_title: Occupational hygiene
section_title: General activities
hierarchical_section_title: Occupational hygiene / General activities
context_page_description: Occupational hygiene is the anticipation, recognition, evaluation, control, and confirmation of protection from hazards at work that may result in injury, illness, or affect the well being of workers. These hazards or stressors are typically divided into the categories biological, chemical, physical, ergonomic and psychosocial. The risk of a health effect from a given stressor is a function of the hazard multiplied by the exposure to the individual or group. For chemicals, the hazard can be understood by the dose response profile most often based on toxicological studies or models. Occupational hygienists work closely with toxicologists for understanding chemical hazards, physicists for physical hazards, and physicians and microbiologists for biological hazards Environmental and occupational hygienists are considered experts in exposure science and exposure risk management. Depending on an individual's type of job, a hygienist will apply their exposure science expertise for the protection of workers, consumers and/or communities.
context_section_description: The occupational hygienist may be involved with the assessment and control of physical, chemical, biological or environmental hazards in the workplace or community that could cause injury or disease.  Physical hazards may include noise, temperature extremes, illumination extremes, ionizing or non-ionizing radiation, and ergonomics.  Chemical hazards related to dangerous goods or hazardous substances are frequently investigated by occupational hygienists.  Other related areas including indoor air quality (IAQ) and safety may also receive the attention of the occupational hygienist.  Biological hazards may stem from the potential for legionella exposure at work or the investigation of biological injury or effects at work, such as dermatitis may be investigated.
  As part of the investigation process, the occupational hygienist may be called upon to communicate effectively regarding the nature of the hazard, the potential for risk, and the appropriate methods of control.  Appropriate controls are selected from the hierarchy of control: by elimination, substitution, engineering, administration and personal protective equipment (PPE) to control the hazard or eliminate the risk.  Such controls may involve recommendations as simple as appropriate PPE such as a 'basic' particulate dust mask to occasionally designing dust extraction ventilation systems, work places or management systems to manage people and programs for the preservation of health and well-being of those who enter a workplace.
  Examples of occupational hygiene include:
  Analysis of physical hazards such as noise, which may require the use hearing protection earplugs and/or earmuffs to prevent hearing loss.
  Developing plans and procedures to protect against infectious disease exposure in the event of a flu pandemic.
  Monitoring the air for hazardous contaminants which may potentially lead to worker illness or death.
caption: Disposable foam earplugs: out of the ear with coins for scale (top) and inserted into the wearer's ear (bottom).
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