OH: Occupational Hygiene

This specialization is dedicated to all colleagues with a background in natural sciences and an interest in making work healthier and keeping health risks away from workers. Participating in our DAS Work+Health course will train you as a work and health specialist and give you skills you can share and apply with other work and health specialists for the benefit of the entire workplace.

Occupational hygiene is the science of detecting and managing work-related health hazards. To be effective, the occupational hygienist is required to co-work with other specialists in the field of work and health, e.g. occupational physicians, toxicologists and safety engineers. Common to all hygienists is a strategic, pragmatic and goal-oriented approach in evaluation and intervention to manage health risks at work.

• Surveying and monitoring new substances and deriving possible occupational health risks and safety procedures
• Assessing actual exposures in employees’ daily work and taking proper action
• Ensuring compliance with health and safety regulations, including minimizing and eliminating work-related health hazards
• Working together with other specialists in the field of work and health to maintain worker health

• Detect work-related health hazards and make required interventions
• Assess the exposure to chemical, biological and physical risk factors by on-site measurements and theoretical modeling
• Control airborne hazards, evaluate ventilation systems and develop effective ventilation and containment strategies
• Assess chemical risks, initiate and conduct substitution processes
• Work together with other specialists in the field of work and health, e.g. occupational physicians, occupational health managers, occupational nurses

• Keep health hazards away from workers
• Substitute safe materials for hazardous substances wherever possible
• Occupational hygienists, along with other work and health specialists, workers and employers, working as a team to maintain and improve health at work

Calling practitioners to join an interdisciplinary team to study work and health, share skills and expertise and form a life-long partnership and network in the evaluation and prevention of occupational health hazards and work-related health problems.