A Report on Occupational Health and Safety: Ergonomics and Biohazards

This report delves into the critical aspects of occupational health and safety, specifically focusing on ergonomics and biological hazards within the workplace. It emphasizes the importance of ergonomic design in workplace layouts to promote worker safety, reduce physical injuries, and enha...Read More

Running Head: OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY 1
Ergonomics and Biological Hazards
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Ergonomics in the Workplace Layout
Ergonometric approach to workplace safety and health issues has been attributed to
significantly promote safe working employment and curbing lawsuits related to physical injuries.
When design workplaces environments and layout, managers must ensure ergonomics principles
are taken into consideration. The flow of work and movement at a workstation considerably
depends on the structural design of the entire infrastructural and equipment layout.
According to Luetic et al. (2018), the ergonometric design of workplaces promotes the
safety of workers and improves production. Incorporating the ergonomics principles in designing
a workplace layout by taking into account the limitations and capabilities of the worker and
suitability of the environment optimizes the use of space, equipment, and efforts of the worker.
Ergonomics ensures efficient alignment of the workplace and the immediate environment hence
reducing the costs related to occurrences of injury. Poor ergonomics increases employees’
fatigue and frustrations thus inhibiting their performance translating to unoptimized productivity
(Lusetic et al., 2018).
Conversely, Justine (2017) indicates that taking into account ergonomics when designing
a workplace reduces musculoskeletal discomfort and production costs as well as improves work
efficacy, productivity, and human well-being. Justine (2017) implores managers to ensure
ergonomics is taken into consideration at every stage of workplace design as well as in the pre-
and post-occupant inspections of the actual environment.
Biological Hazards at Workplace: Influenza
a. Health issue/concern
Newman-Martin (2012) points out that biohazards are a significant challenge for
Occupational Health and Safety (OHS). Most of the biohazards experienced at workplace

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originate from the exposure of workers to either hazardous organisms or materials produced by
the microorganisms. Workers in the fishing, agricultural, and health community care are more
are highly vulnerable to biohazards. The biohazards can originate from within the work
environment or outside due to their infectious potential hence transmitted through various
modes. For instance, a biological hazard such as influenza flu is reported to affect over 13% of
the United States population annually (Copeland, 2018).
b. Who is impacted
All employees are vulnerable to infections from biological hazards. Employees under the
agricultural, health community care, and fishing being highly susceptible to the infections.
Newman-Martin (2012) notes that over 1300 employees are annually compassionated in
Australia over biological, human, or animal related infections. A study by Newman-Martin
revealed that 19% of employees worked in environments with biologically hazardous materials,
75% were exposed to human bodily fluids, while 30% to animals or animal products.
c. What is impacted
Biohazard infections result in significant time wastage when the employees call in for
leave of absence due to illnesses. This translates into a substantial loss in productivity and wages
hampering the economic growth of a country. Using influenza flu as an example, a CDC report
indicated that over two-thirds of employees failed to report to work last year in the US over flu-
related illness resulting to over $10 billion wages and productivity loss (Copeland, 2018).
d. When would this take place?
Biohazards affect or lead to infections through various modes of transmission. The
transmission can be either direct when a healthy individual gets in physical contact with
biohazard organism or an infected person. Indirect infections can be through the air for

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communicable diseases, food-borne, or through vector-based infections. Most common direct
infection involve exposure to body fluids (Newman-Martin, 2012).

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References
Copeland, J. (2018). The Effects of the Flu in the Workplace. Retrieved Nov 11, 2018, from
Arbill Corporate: https://www.arbill.com/arbill-safety-blog/bid/166303/The-Effects-of-
the-Flu-in-the-Workplace
Justine, M. Y. (2017). Creating an Ergonomic Workplace by Design. Proceedings of the 2nd
Asian Conference on Ergonomics and Design, (pp. 376-379). Chiba, Japan.
Lusetic, T., Trstenjak, M., & Cosic, P. (2018). Ergonomic Design of a Workplace. MOTSP
2018: International Conference Management of Technology. Primošten, Croatia.
Newman-Martin, G. (2012). Core Body of Knowledge for the Generalist OHS Professional:
Biological Hazards. In HaSPA (Health and Safety Professionals Alliance) (Ed.), The
Core Body of Knowledge for Generalist OHS Professionals (pp. 11-27). Tullamarine,
VIC: Safety Institute of Australia.
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