Industrial Hygienists Can Help Guide Us Into a Safe Future of Work

Working in EHS can be a bit of an undersung job.

Environment, Health, and Safety (EHS) professionals don’t tend to get their names in the headlines, yet their work is a fundamental underpinning of industry. Countless people work tirelessly to protect their employees, their companies, and the world we live in — often with little fanfare. With the current state of the world, expertise around EHS within the workplace feels more critical and urgent than ever before.

So, at Antea Group, we like to shine a spotlight on different EHS-related roles and take a closer look at what their day-to-day is like. Following our write-up on the evolving role of environmental engineers, today we’ll dive into what industrial hygienists contribute to EHS, especially during this pivotal time.

What Is an Industrial Hygienist?

Industrial hygienists (or occupational hygienists) are applied scientists and engineers that help to manage and mitigate different aspects of industrial hygiene. In other words, they work to proactively recognize, evaluate, and control harmful substances or potential hazards involved with manufacturing, processing, construction, and other operational processes.

If that sounds like a broad range of work, it certainly is. Industrial hygienists are needed in almost every industry.

What Does an Industrial Hygienist Do?

At the core of the profession, industrial hygiene is about keeping people and their surrounding environments safe. This can manifest through a wide range of specialty areas, such as radiation, ergonomics, particulate matter, or really anything that can do harm to a person’s health.

Industrial hygienists can act as “hazard detectives,” using their knowledge base in chemistry, biology, physics, and human health to identify and evaluate potential health risks in the workplace.

Although industrial hygienists will often deal directly with technology on-site to identify hazards and assess risk, they also act as consultants, helping to guide and align company policies with financial, physical, and psychological realities. Industrial hygienists can make recommendations that affect individual worksites, or EHS initiatives that span the entire organization.

Once they’ve assessed the risk of a given potential hazard, they can also weigh in on the proposed control measures to ensure a sustainable, effective solution.

The Four Main Challenges of an Industrial Hygienist

Though it’s definitely in the job description, industrial hygienists aren’t just relegated to mitigating the risks of hazardous materials in the workplace. There are four main types of challenges that an industrial hygienist encounters:

1. Physical hazards: This can encompass issues of air quality, radiation, unsafe temperature, slips, trips, falls, repetitive stress injuries, and other physical risks.
2. Chemical hazards: This includes chemicals used in operations, potential water or food contamination, direct or indirect contact with harmful chemicals, harmful gases or liquids, lead exposure, and more.
3. Biological hazards: This covers any pathological risks for workers or the community, as well as disease, germs that pose a risk to operational processes.
4. Ergonomic hazards: Any environmental hazards to one’s physical or psychological health. This includes lighting, noise levels, office setups, workspace ergonomics, and more.

What Does the Industrial Hygiene Role Look Like Now?

With the advent of COVID-19, industrial hygiene has never been more important. As many companies welcome their employees back to the workplace, they’re having to contend with new standards of safety, new risks, and new ways of working. What’s more, the pandemic caused a lot of organizations to put key EHS priorities on the backburner. Now, companies are seeing pent-up demand to evaluate and review processes and practices.

Industrial hygienists are already specialized in determining, communicating, and embedding best practices for keeping their workforce safe. Issues like ventilation and sanitation may be new areas of concern for workers, but it’s well-trodden ground for industrial hygienists. Relying on their expertise may make the most important kind of difference — the continued health of your people.

Recently, the American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) released new guidelines around health metrics to prevent illness and injury in the workplace, featuring a key emphasis on leading (as opposed to lagging) indicators.

"The focus on identifying measures that occur before worker’s health is harmed is critical to safeguarding worker health," said AIHA CEO Lawrence D. Sloan.

AIHA has also called for federal agencies to create specific guidelines relating to COVID-19, including the issuance of a temporary emergency standard for the virus. More than ever, worker health is at the forefront of business leadership priorities here in 2021, and that means so too are industrial hygienists. The best and brightest will play an essential role in keeping employees safe, healthy, and confident as they venture forth into a strange new world.

At Antea Group, our experienced team of industrial hygienists are available to help companies best protect their people. For more info, check out Antea Group’s Industrial Hygiene Services.

About Antea Group: Antea Group is an international engineering and environmental consulting firm specializing in full-service solutions in the fields of environment, infrastructure, urban planning, and water. By combining strategic thinking and multidisciplinary perspectives with technical expertise and pragmatic action, we do more than effectively solve client challenges; we deliver sustainable results for a better future. We serve clients ranging from global energy companies and manufacturers to national governments and local municipalities. Learn more at https://us.anteagroup.com.