Basic Calculations for Occupational Safety and Environmental Health Professionals - Mathematics and Statistics for the Environment - page 381

After introducing pertinent foundational information on stressors and standards, we describe
areas in occupational health where mathematical methods and operations (other than statistical
methods, already presented) are standard to the profession.
15.2 WORKPLACE STRESSORS
To ensure a healthy workplace environment and associated environs, the environmental profes-
sional focuses on the recognition, evaluation, and control of chemical, physical, or biological
and ergonomic stressors that can cause sickness, impaired health, or significant discomfort to
humans, animals, and plants. The key word just mentioned was stressors , or simply, stress —the
stress caused by the external or internal environmental demands placed upon us. Increases in
external stressors beyond a person's tolerance level affect his or her overall health and on-the-job
performance.
The environmental practitioner must understand not only that environmental stressors exist but
that they also are sometimes cumulative. For example, workplace studies have shown that some
assembly-line processes are little affected by either low illumination or vibration; however, when
these two stressors are combined, assembly-line performance deteriorates. Other cases have shown
just the opposite effect. A worker who has had little sleep and then is exposed to a work area where
noise levels are high actually benefits (to a degree, depending on the intensity of the noise level and
the worker's exhaustion level) from the increased arousal level; a lack of sleep combined with a high
noise level is compensatory.
In order to recognize environmental stressors and other factors that influence an individual's
health, the environmental health practitioner must be familiar with work operations, home envi-
ronment, lifestyle factors, and other processes. In the workplace, for example, an essential part of
the new environmental professional's orientation process should include an overview of all perti-
nent company work operations and processes. Obviously, the newly hired environmental profession
responsible for safety and health in the workplace who has not been fully indoctrinated on company
work operations and processes is not qualified to study the environmental effects of such processes
and suffers from another disability—lack of credibility with supervisors and workers (if you have
not been there, then you are not one of us). This point cannot be emphasized strongly enough—if
your intention is to correct or remove environmental stressors you must know your organization and
what it is all about.
What are the workplace and general environmental stressors the industrial hygienist, safety
professional, and environmental professional should be concerned with? The stressors of concern
should be those that are likely to accelerate the aging process; they can cause significant discomfort
and inefficiency, as well as chronic illness, or they may be immediately dangerous to life and health
(Spellman, 1998). Several stressors fall into these categories; the most important work-related health
stressors include chemical, physical, biological, and ergonomic stressors.
15.2.1 C hemiCal s tressors
Chemical stressors are harmful chemical compounds in the form of solids, liquids, gases, mists,
dusts, fumes, and vapors that exert toxic effects by inhalation (breathing), absorption (direct contact
with the skin), or ingestion (eating or drinking). Airborne chemical hazards exist as concentra-
tions of mists, vapors, gases, fumes, or solids. Some are toxic through inhalation and some of them
irritate the skin on contact; some can be toxic by absorption through the skin or through ingestion,
and some are corrosive to living tissue. The degree of individual risk from exposure to any given
substance depends on the nature and potency of the toxic effects and the magnitude and duration
of exposure.