Occupational Safety and Health (OHSS) is a multidiscipline in matters of protection, safety, health and welfare of the people involved in the work. Industrial safety and hygiene programs seek to promote a safe and healthy work environment. The SySO also includes protection for co-workers, family members, employers, clients, and others who may be affected by the work environment.
According to the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) "Occupational health should aim to promote and maintain the highest degree of physical, mental and social well-being of workers in all areas of life. Occupations, the prevention among workers of health deviations caused by their working conditions, the protection of workers in their employment against the risks resulting from adverse factors to health; the placement and maintenance of the worker in a work environment adapted to his physiological and psychological capacities and, to summarize: the adaptation of work to man and each man to his job. "(ILO and WHO, 1950)
For the Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series, the OH & S are the "Conditions and factors that affect the well-being of: employees, temporary workers, contractors' personnel, visits and of any other person in the place of work. "(OHSAS 18001, 2007) (1).
The importance of the SySO is for legal (preventive, punitive and compensatory) and economic reasons (benefits and social costs), which is why it involves many specialties such as occupational medicine, industrial hygiene, public health, safety engineering, industrial engineering, chemistry, health physics, ergonomics and occupational health psychology.
In summary, the SySO is a set of techniques and disciplines aimed at identifying, evaluating and controlling the risks originated in the work, with the aim of avoiding losses in terms of injuries, damage to property, materials and work environment.
Every organization must assure workers and others who may be affected by occupational hazards at all times because it can represent a very high cost in the future.
(1) ISO 45001 will be the future standard that establishes the requirements to implement a Safety and Health Management System at Work (currently the OHSAS 18001 standard), based on the concept of Plan-Do-Check-Act, integrated with other systems such as ISO 9001 and ISO 14001.
Among the main advances, it reinforces the role of senior management in the leadership of the Safety and Health at Work Management System, as an important part of its business strategy. In addition, it puts more emphasis on the context of the organization and risk management, not only limited to the negative effect of uncertainty but also to take advantage of the set of circumstances that can lead to improved performance (opportunities).
It also presents the high level structure common with the most used management documents in the world, ISO 9001 (Quality) and ISO 14001 (Environment). In addition, evidence of compliance with legal and other requirements is reinforced