Occupational Asthma
Workplaces have different environment, some are on water, near forests, in the middle of an urban city, or even in a village, but even if they really differ from each other, they have similar level of risk and chances for an employee or people surround it to sustain injury or even death. There is that, but there are some employees who are working in a long term project or in a production industry wherein they are exposed to chemicals, weather condition, and other common matter present in their work place which is called occupational disease, a preventable occupational risk that rooted from the nature of the job.
Specifically, occupational disease is an acquired health condition or disorder such as cancer, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and alike, that is caused by one’s occupation and its work environment or role that one fulfill related to work. One of these occupational disease is occupational asthma.
What is Occupational Asthma?
Occupational asthma is a type of asthma induced by long hours exposure to inhaled irritants in the workplace such as dust and other solid materials’ specks, on most cases, occupational asthma is a reversible condition which means without being contact with those irritants, the asthma may be gone or avoided.
It is the same as other form of asthma that has different causes as its symptoms still include shortness of breath, wheezing, cough, runny nose, irritation on nose and eyes, and even tightness felt in the chest and may tend to make a transition from light or moderate form of asthma to a more serious and manifest pressing symptoms than usual when exposed even more following the discover of occupational asthma which is concerning and may require worker-patient to visit a physician for their current health standing. Unfortunately, it progesses even being exposed to smaller asthma triggers such as smoke, dust, and humid temperatures. Though, on vacations where there is a halt on exposure to irritants, the asthma would reside temporarily and comes back when exposed to triggers for atleast a day.
According to a study, there is an approximately up to 25% adults who have asthma acquired from different occupation and a ratio of 0.53 cases per 100,000 workers who develop a kind of respiratory disease such as occupational asthma caused by exposure to various respiratory irritants in their respective workplace.
How can employers prevent development of occupational asthma among employees?
Against asthma, avoidance of triggers through many ways is the best prevention and here are detailed steps how does this avoidance should be done in a any work place:
- First, if an employee felt symptoms of a potential asthma, ask your employer to change your position or assignment post to avoid continuing exposure.
- Be careful or even interchange process of your work where it result in lesser production of irritant
- If the personal protective equipments (PPEs) are not enough or the irritants penetrate through it based on your self assessment and observation, request to your employer to change them in to more rigid ones and tighter ones for you to work safely without worrying to one’s health.
- Employer should implement an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) approved and recommended set of regulations from hygiene to general practice that should be observed inside the work place.
Call your Lawyer as an Advisor
If ever one of your family members or closests friend has been involved in a workplace accident or have developed a condition who have sustained either minor or significant injuries and even a possible disability because of the employer that has shown apparent negligence and recklessness and caused an accident and render the victim to have life-threatening injuries and condition, you can always refer help from a professional experienced injury lawyer to smoothen things out as your hired lawyers can help you decide from their factual and legal advices.
Ryan Injury Lawyers is an Ohio based injury lawyer that represents victims of personal injury caused by car accidents, medical malpractice due to medical professional’s negligence, and even wrongful death against large companies, agencies and even individuals. We have 40 years of experience doing our service in this field and evidently successful with our civil litigations. Call our office now for free legal consultation.