Industrial Hygiene, Health & Safety

Industrial hygiene (IH) has been defined as “that science and art devoted to the anticipation, recognition, evaluation, and control of those environmental factors or stresses arising in or from the workplace, which may cause sickness, impaired health and well-being, or significant discomfort among workers or among the citizens of the community.” Industrial hygienists use environmental monitoring and analytical methods to detect the extent of worker exposure and employ engineering, work practice controls, and other methods to control potential health hazards. In the US, the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) was founded in 1970 to ensure “safe and healthful working conditions for workers by setting and enforcing standards and by providing training, outreach, education and assistance”.

While there has been an awareness of industrial hygiene since antiquity. Industrial hygiene gained scientific respectability in 1700 when Bernardo Ramazzini, known as the "father of industrial medicine," published in Italy the first comprehensive book on industrial medicine, De Morbis Artificum Diatriba (The Diseases of Workmen). Ramazzini greatly affected the future of industrial hygiene because he asserted that occupational diseases should be studied in the work environment rather than in hospital wards. Today, numerous other terms or synonyms defining IH have evolved, e.g., Occupational Hygiene, Occupational Health, Environment Health and Safety (EH&S) but all define essentially the same field of science.