Hazard Types and their Identification

Contents

1. What are the hazards types and their effects?

2. Physical hazards

3. Chemical Hazards

4. Biological Hazards

5. Ergonomically Hazards

6. Safety Hazards

7. Hierarchy Hazard Controls

8. Elimination

9. Substitution

10. Engineering control including Isolation

11. Administrative Control

12. Personal Protective equipment

13. Hazard Identification Method

14. Hazard Identification Sample Template

What are the hazards types and their effects?

If you are responsible to manage safety at your company/workplace, you must have enough knowledge of hazards and their effects. Because hazard identification is an important element in the safety management system. You will require this job (hazard identification) in daily activities to ensure the health and safety of yourself and your co-workers.

It is a common misunderstanding that people interchange or consider the hazard and risk as of the same meaning which is not true because both are entirely different. Hazard identification is a sub-part of risk assessment, or it can be used as an independent tool to identify hazards and advice measures.

In this article we will mainly cover hazards, their types and effects associated. There are seven types of hazards which can be list as under;

1. Physical Hazard

2. Ergonomically

3. Chemical Hazard

4. Biological hazard

5. Psychological hazard

6. Safety hazard

Physical hazards

Are those which affect the worker without coming into contact or the environmental factors which cause harm to the worker. Details are tabulated as under;

Chemical Hazards

Exposure to harmful/toxic chemicals can cause acute or chronic risk to the person exposed - the chemical hazards can enter into the body by four routes: inhalation, ingestion, injection, and absorption. Some common chemical hazards and their effects are tabulated below;.

Biological Hazards

Are the hazards associated with living organisms include bacteria, viruses, and insects. Biological hazards at workplaces are common if no health and hygiene management system exist. Few examples of biological hazard and their effects on human are tabulated as under;

Ergonomically Hazards

When work, worker and workplace is misfit to each other ergonomic hazards are originate and the worker gets harm. These are the conditions in which the worker's musculoskeletal system can be affected due to improper or work station or excess of force on the particular part of the body or muscle. Examples of ergonomic hazard and their effects are tabulated as under;

Safety Hazards

A safety hazard is also referred to as compound hazards as they originate with a combination of multiple factors. For example, falling objects hazard is a combination of multiple factors involves improper edge protection, unsafe stacking of material and lack of supervision. Few examples of safety or compound hazard are tabulated as under;

Hierarchy of Hazard Controls

To control the hazards either by their elimination or deal with the correct procedures at the workplace is an important step of hazard identification and their controls. The hazard control interventions can be done in five different ways; these are called the hierarchy of controls.

1. Elimination

2. Substitution

3. Engineering control including Isolation

4. Administrative Control

5. Personal Protective equipment

Elimination

Elimination is the most effective control when we are dealing with hazard controls – through elimination, we can control 100% of the consequences associated with hazards that have been eliminated. But, elimination is not always that easy for the employer as the cost-benefit analysis mostly becomes a barrier for elimination. Therefore, it is important for the employer to consider the safety aspect from the beginning of their projects or program because if the hazards are identified at the designing or planning phase then it becomes easy and justifiable to execute elimination control.

Substitution

The second most effective hazard control is substitution which can be done by replacing hazardous material with no hazard association or with less harmful without compromising on the output. For example, replacing mercury-based thermometers in a hospital setup with digital thermometers.

It is important to consider that the replacing material must not result in a new kind of hazard or harm.

Engineering Control

Engineering control some time it also called isolation control and it mainly works on the design of the work or machine/tool. Engineering control is very effective as it prevents any unwanted exposure or hazard to workers. Further, this control is long last if the proper maintenance procedure is in place. For example, guarding of moving parts of machines e.g. conveyer belt, etc. can prevent worker to expose to mechanical hazards

Administrative Control

Administrative control is also referred to as SSOW – The effectiveness of administrative control in safety depends on the organization's commitment toward safety and competency of the responsible person. The administrative control includes work permit system, safety induction system, and accident reporting & investigation system.

Personal Protective equipment

Personal Protective equipment is considered to be last resort of safety controls – PPEs' effectiveness is depending on the quality of PPEs and the behavior of the person wearing them because most of the worker gets injured due to substandard material of PPEs and others get hazard exposure due to improper utilization of PPEs.

For example, a worker gets head injury despite wearing a helmet because the material of the helmet is not strong enough to bear the hit of fall object on the helmet. 

Hazard Identification Method

The Hazard identification can be done by survey/visit the area under consideration, as the staff/worker about the procedures, checking documents or manuals available, checking important dates on the material, equipment and machines, and lastly measurement of different safety parameters including working area temperature, oxygen level, CO/CO2 level, lighting, ventilation, etc.

STEP outline to describe hazard identification method’

1. Visit the target area thoroughly don't ignore or skip anything in between
2. Use your knowledge and experience to observe material, workers, and processes
3. Use knowledge of staff/workers
4. Noe down all finding
5. Recommend safety controls where required

Hazard Identification Sample Template

Below sample template can be used for Hazard Identification;