5 Workplace Hazards and Risk of Patient and Nurse Harm
What is a hazard?
Legislation is an important tool
What is industrial
hygiene?
A hazard is a workplace condition
that has the potential to cause
injury, illness, or death to workers.
There are five major categories
of hazards:
• Physical
• Chemical
• Biological
• Ergonomic
• Psychosocial
The primary hazards nurses face
in a hospital are:
• Frequent manual patient
handling (ergonomic)
• Infectious diseases (biological)
• Violence (psychosocial)
• Hazardous chemicals/drugs
(chemical)
Strong legislation is an important tool in fights
to protect nurses' health and safety in hospitals.
We have seen great success in California with our
landmark nurse staffing ratio legislation. Studies
have shown that injury rates have decreased
as a result of the legislation.
California's Nurse-To-Patient Ratio Law Reduced Nurse
Injuries by More Than 30 Percent
( J. Paul Leigh et al. University of California, Davis, 2015. )
Industrial hygiene is work devoted
to anticipating, identifying, evalu-
ating, preventing, and controlling
hazardous conditions in workplac-
es. The goal is to ensure workers'
health and safety; all workers have
the fundamental right to leave
work alive, uninjured, and healthy.
Alice Hamilton, the mother of
industrial hygiene, came out of
the settlement house movement,
like Lillian Wald. In her autobiogra-
phy, Hamilton describes industrial
hygiene as "work which has been
scientific only in part, but human
and practical in greater measure."
