Changing the emphasis from workplace safety to health

When it comes to worker wellbeing, the historical focus has been around making workplaces safer – avoiding injury due to falling equipment, reducing injuries, and so on. However, we are now seeing a shift from general safety to concentrating more on employee health, especially the potential impacts on long-term health associated with working in hazardous environments.  

This is due, in part, increased awareness regarding the long-term health hazards associated with dust inhalation, with a CIPD survey finding that 47% of employers now think that employee wellbeing is directly linked to business performance. 

The Health and Safety Executive’s 2016/17 review indicated a changing emphasis towards health by demonstrating their priorities for the following 12 months, identified as establishing:  

A three-year health and work programme to reduce levels of a number of long-term health issues, including: 

  • work-related stress 
  • musculoskeletal disorders 
  • occupational lung diseases 

Reducing longer term health risks, including 880 inspections in the construction industry to tackle exposure to respirable crystalline silica (RCS). 

A study compiled by the University of Birmingham and Health Exchange highlighted that improving employee health factors – which obviously have better long-term health implications – can also actually decrease the chances of workplace injuries due to increased employee awareness and performance. 

It has become increasingly clear that many working environments create hazards that have a long-term impact on employees, an impact that is not always immediately visible. While physical injury remains a serious risk in the mining and industrial workplace, respirable dust exposure is one of the greatest hazards experienced by miners and workers in a wide range of industries, even today, and can cause serious long-term health implications. 

Whilst in the past, real-time dust monitoring was both expensive and short lived, the latest generation of dust monitoring technology is both low cost and low maintenance, meaning that dust monitoring is becoming a primary technology to support organisations in their bid to deliver long term employee health alongside safety. 

With growing concerns around dust-related illnesses, real-time dust monitoring is essential to relieving these health concerns. While the latest generation of real-time dust monitoring technology provides the information to enable organisations to be far more sophisticated about balancing employee comfort with safety, it is just the start. 










    In order to provide you the content requested, we need to store and process your personal data.

    If you consent to us storing your personal data to provide the content and for further communications, please tick the checkbox below.

    You may unsubscribe from these communications at any time. For more information on how to unsubscribe, our privacy practices, and how we are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy, please review our Privacy Policy.