Health Surveillance

Health Surveillance

Health surveillance is a system of ongoing health checks. It monitors the worker health and acts as a proactive measure .

These health checks may be required by law for employees, who are exposed to noise, vibration, ionising radiation, solvents, fumes, dusts, biological agents. And other substances hazardous to health. Or work in compressed air etc.
Health Surveillance is crucial because it contributes to better prevention and management of non-communicable diseases.

Importance/ benefits / reasons of Health Surveillance

Health surveillance is important for:

  • Detecting ill-health effects at an early stage, so employers can introduce better controls to prevent them getting
  • Providing data to help employers evaluate health
  • Enabling employees to raise concerns about how work affects their health
  • Highlighting lapses in workplace control measures, therefore providing invaluable feedback to the risk
  • Providing an opportunity to reinforce training and education of employees (eg on the impact of health effects and the use of protective equipment).
  • Health surveillance can sometimes be used to help identify where more needs to be done to control risks and where early signs of work-related ill health are detected, employers should take action to prevent further harm and protect

See Also  –

Active and reactive monitoring

 What are the advantages of Safety Survey over Safety inspection?