Evaluation

There's a management cliche that used to be quite popular a few years ago - "you can't manage what you can't measure". I'm afraid I couldn't agree less!

This may seem strange coming from an occupational hygienist, particularly as where anyone knows anything about what we do they assume we spend our time making measurements of dust, fumes, vapours noise and other hazardous agents. In fact evaluation is only part of what an occupational hygienist does and even then measurement is only one technique that we use to evaluate risk. Our prime objective is not to carry out measurements, but to control risk. In order to do that we need to know which hazardous agents present in the workplace are likely to present a significant risk - so risk evaluation is an essential prerequisite to control - but it is a means to an end, not an end in itself.

As many workplace hazards are not visible to the naked eye it s not always easy to recognise where a significant risk is present. In these situations, measuring worker exposure to the contaminants can help us to decisions on risk. However, sometimes it is obvious that a problem exists. Just take a look at the picture above. Its pretty obvious that the worker is exposed to a high concentration of fume and that improved controls are needed o protect his health (and possibly the health of others n the workplace). In such cases its better putting our time and effort into solving the problem rather than quantifying it.