Chapter 18

Abstract:

Chapter 18 focused on Safety and Health in the workplace. The chapter begins with statistics relating to occupational injuries. An estimated 2.2 million people die yearly from occupational injuries. Also an estimated 160 million work-related disease occurs worldwide. Other than the time spent at home, the second largest portion of Americas people spend their time at work. Therefore a safe and healthy workplace is essential to helping America reach their fully health potential. The book then goes into the history of occupational safety and health problems. Before the 1970's there were very few work places that offered little to no protection against injuries. It wasn't uncommon to find unhealthy work places. Mining was the number one in most dangerous work places but cotton mills and textile factories came in second. The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 was set forth to raise consciousness of both management and labor to the problems of health and safety in the workplace. Going back further, before child labor laws were passes, it was not uncommon to see children work long hours at dangerous workplaces such as mining. A huge pioneer mentioned was Alica Hamilton who helped spike awareness to these issues. The chapter then went into discussion about the different types of injuries and types of work. The book showed several graphs that compared the different types of jobs versus the injuries that happened. It went through the difference between ages and what type of injury one might have suffered. The book then went into a discussion about workplace violence, or intentional injury. Researchers have divided workplace violence into four categories. 1. Criminal Intent (Type I) 2. Customer/Client (Type II) 3. Worker-on-worker (Type III) 4. Personal Relationships (Type IV). The chapter end with explaining the different types of occupational injuries and prevention strategies. One type of prevention is the use of occupational doctors and nurses. Another type mentioned in the chapter was occupational safety and health programs. This topic has subdivisions including preplacement examinations, occupational disease prevention programs and safety programs, work site health promotion programs and employee assistance programs.

Reflection:

Our group really focused more on the statistics the book showed. It startled us to realize how many unintentional injuries occurred and how much of them could be prevented. Our group was completely unaware of how many injuries, cases of disease and deaths people actually suffered from in their work place. A lot of the statistics the book showed us were not at all familiar. It is a given that most of the fatalities would come from a construction or some kind of maintenance job but that some of the jobs that ranked in near the top were jobs dealing with retail trade, and government. This chapter was a very resourceful chapter because it dealt with a lot of concepts we could relate to. Since we are in college and are looking for permanent workplaces once we graduate, it is crucial we take all of the factors discussed in this chapter into consideration.