Occupational Health

Occupational health is a field of healthcare that focuses on workers’ health, well-being and safety. It falls under the umbrella of public health and preventive medicine. And like those fields, it devotes a lot of time and resources to prevention, education and monitoring.

What you do for a living and where you work can have a tremendous impact on your overall health. Whether you work in a factory or an industrial field, or have an office job, there are still hazards to your health and well-being. And that's where occupational health comes in. People in this field try to prevent harm to you in or from your workplace, and keep you healthy so you can focus on your job and time away.

Is occupational health the same as occupational medicine?

Not quite. It’s common for people to use the terms “occupational health” and “occupational medicine” interchangeably. But in the United States, occupational and environmental medicine is a distinct medical specialty. That specialty falls under the American Board of Preventive Medicine. And the World Health Organization classifies occupational medicine under occupational health.

Occupational health and what it includes

Some of the subfields under occupational health include, but aren’t limited to, the following:

• Education: Teaching people how to work safely is an essential part of occupational health.
• Engineering: Workplace safety often involves machines or technology that limit harm or prevent it altogether.
• Epidemiology and statistics: These let experts analyze data and look for things to improve. An example would be analyzing injuries among workers and then looking for patterns. That could uncover a preventable injury.
• Ergonomics: Your body positioning while working can make a huge difference in your health and quality of life. Ergonomics analyzes and tries to improve posture and positioning to avoid pain and injuries.
• Industrial hygiene: This is about making sure your workplace is free from harmful substances. One example is air scrubbers and filters to make sure the air is safe to breathe. Another would be safety sheets and procedures that give instructions on how to safely clean up chemical spills.
• Laboratory science: Lab tests can determine what’s toxic and what isn’t. They can also help track worker health.
• Safety: The best way to prevent workplace injuries is to promote safety and prevent them from ever happening. That makes safety the highest goal in occupational health.

What kinds of conditions does occupational health try to prevent?

Occupational health prevents many conditions that can happen related to your job. They include:

• Heat-related illnesses: These can affect people who work in hot industrial settings or those who work outdoors in hot temperatures.
• Infectious diseases: These are a risk for people working in healthcare. But it also includes agriculture workers at risk from conditions like bird flu or swine flu. And even people who work in offices or other crowded places can also easily develop conditions, like COVID-19 or influenza.
• Injuries: These include injuries related to using machines, like lacerations, blunt force injuries and more. They can also include injuries like fall-related injuries or burns of any type.
• Mental health conditions: Examples include burnout-related issues, like anxiety and depression. But it can also include trauma-related conditions, like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
• Respiratory conditions: These include conditions like farmer’s lung, black lung for miners, or occupational and work-related asthma. And it can also include conditions from environmental hazards, like infections from black mold or silicosis from dust.
• Sensory damage: Examples include noise-induced hearing loss from working in loud places or vision loss from welding torches.
• Toxic exposures: Examples include poisoning from heavy metals or chemicals, like organophosphates.