Keeping the Community Healthy and Safe with Industrial Hygiene

The American Board of Industrial Hygiene has established that successful candidates for certificates shall attain the status of Diplomat of the American Academy of Industrial Hygiene, subject to compliance with requirements established by the American Board of Industrial Hygiene. The goal of the industrial hygienist is to keep workers, their families, and the community healthy and safe. They play a vital part in ensuring that federal, state, and local laws and regulations are followed in the work environment. Industrial hygienists deal with the health and safety challenges facing people everywhere according to American Industrial Hygiene Association.

According to Hygiene Industrial News (HIN), the typical roles of the industrial hygienist include, investigating and examining the workplace for hazards and potential dangers, making recommendations on improving the safety of workers and the surrounding community developing techniques to anticipate and control potentially dangerous situations in the workplace and the community, advising government officials and participating in the development of regulations to ensure the health and safety of workers and their families, and ensuring that workers are properly following health and safety procedures. Gloves are the most common personal protective equipment (PPE) used by workers across different industrial workplaces. Hand injuries are one of the leading causes of work-related injury and can be prevented through the use of industrial gloves. Hand injuries are caused due to physical or chemical hazards and lead to burns, bruises, abrasions, cuts, punctures, fractures, and may result in hand amputation. The injuries of workers often lead to significant losses in productivity in various industries such as automotive, food & beverage, and healthcare; as per an estimate, wearing gloves reduces the relative risk of injury by at least 60 percent. Protective gloves are used by employees at workplaces in applications such as cutting, packaging, construction, repairing, and others to protect hands from injuries. The protective gloves are selected depending upon duration of contact, task, and materials to be handled. Furthermore, gloves provide protection against chemical risks, mechanical risks, micro-organisms, and water. Gloves that offer protection against chemicals are vital in protecting workers against dermatitis, chemical exposure, or burns. Industrial gloves market, in terms of revenue, was evaluated at USD4, 912.9 million in 2014 and is estimated to garner USD9, 774.5 million by 2020 growing at a CAGR of 12.8 percent over the forecast period. The increasing awareness about work safety, increasing variety of threats to the personnel, rapidly growing food processing industry and rising demand for high dexterity gloves, are some of the key factors that drive the growth of the world industrial gloves market during the analysis period. In addition, the outbreak of various epidemics such as swine flu, Ebola among others resulting in increased use of gloves in product protection applications is significantly fostering the demand in the industrial gloves market. Factors restraining the market growth are unstable raw material prices and the use of robotics in manufacturing. The introduction of new glove designs with better grip and convenience are likely to offer better growth prospects in future. Moreover, rapid industrialization and improving healthcare reforms in Asia Pacific region would also provide a boost to the growth of industrial gloves market. Traditional industrial hygiene has been defined as the art of anticipation, detection, evaluation and control. Technology may be taking detection out of the equation, at least to an extent, but anticipation, evaluation and designing control strategies still demand professional judgment.