Implications of Exposure to Hazards

Implications of Exposure to Hazards (substances and hazards are known (SO1-AC2))

Most workplace health hazards target a particular part of the body such as the lungs, skin or liver. A large number of workplace diseases and disease agents are recognised. Virtually any part of the body can be affected in some way by some workplace health hazard. An important consideration is how exposure occurs.

For some hazards, there can be one type of effect from a single, high exposure (an acute effect) and a quite different result when exposure is at a low level but repeated regularly over a prolonged period of time (chronic effect). Acute effects depend on the degree of exposure.

It is therefore relatively easy to control exposure (keep it at a low enough level) to avoid acute effects. Or, to put it another way, if workers are experiencing acute effects, they know exposure to the hazard is not being properly controlled. With chronic effects, there are immediate warnings. Where long-term exposure is known to cause disease without any warning of the hazard, it may be necessary to control worker exposure through regulations that prescribe occupational exposure limits (OELs).