Health Hazards

AFSCME members face thousands of different hazards at work. Health hazards generally cause illnesses. Safety hazards cause injuries.

Health hazards can be grouped in this way:

How hazards enter the body

To prevent exposure to health hazards, it is important to understand first how harmful agents enter the body. The way an agent enters your body also can make a difference in what happens to you. For example, breathing asbestos fibers causes cancer or other harm to the lungs. Swallowing asbestos fibers can cause damage in the stomach, colon or other digestive organs.

There are four main ways that harmful agents can enter your body.

Breathing (inhalation)

You can breathe in chemicals, some that you cannot even see or smell. Some diseases, such as tuberculosis (TB) are spread by breathing in germs that are in the air.

Swallowing (ingestion)

Workers can swallow chemicals in different ways. You can swallow chemicals along with your food if you do not wash your hands after handling chemicals. In dusty areas you can swallow chemicals such as lead or asbestos particles that are in the air or that land on food or in drinks.

Some diseases, such as hepatitis A, are spread by eating food that is contaminated with the hepatitis A virus. Other germs can be swallowed if you eat or touch your mouth without proper hand washing after touching soiled linens or other items.

Skin: (absorption)

Many chemicals and some types of radiation can pass right through your skin. Some types of chemicals, germs or radiation will cause illness or symptoms just by coming into contact with the skin. For example, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), a group of toxic chemicals used in transformers, can cause a painful skin rash called chloracne.

Cuts (injection)

Chemicals or germs can also pass through your skin if you get cut or get stuck with a sharp object such as a needle.

When hazards cause harm

Exposure does not always mean that a hazard must enter the body to cause damage. A person can hurt their back from lifting something too heavy. Someone can get frostbite from working outside in the winter. The type of harm depends on the part of the body that is exposed and the other factors shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1

Length of exposure: How long you are exposed to the agent.

Amount: How much of the agent you are exposed to.

Potency: The strength, or ability of an agent or process to cause serious problems.