Media Kit

Who Are Industrial Hygienists?

Anticipation, Prevention, Solutions

Industrial hygienists are highly qualified scientists and engineers who anticipate, and design solutions to prevent, health and safety issues. Industrial hygienists apply science to identify and solve health and safety problems in thousands of different work settings and in the community. While industrial hygiene is considered a science, it is also an art that involves judgment, creativity, and human interaction.
Originally, industrial hygienists worked in factories and other industrial settings, but as society has changed, so has the definition of industrial hygiene. Today, an industrial hygienist can be found in almost every type of work setting, from airports to the offices of Fortune 500 companies to dairies. Industrial hygiene is a long-term, profitable return on investment with a powerful return: worker health and safety, lower risk, and improved productivity.

Typical Roles

The duties and responsibilities of industrial hygienists include:

• Investigating and examining the workplace for hazards and potential dangers
• Making recommendations on improving the safety of workers and the surrounding community
• Conducting scientific research to provide data on possible harmful conditions in the workplace
• Developing techniques to anticipate and control potentially dangerous situations in the workplace and the community
• Training and educating the community about job-related risks
• Advising government officials and participating in the development of regulations to ensure the health and safety of workers and their families
• Ensuring that workers are properly following health and safety procedures

What Are the Benefits?

Workplace safety and health programs have made a tremendous difference in preventing occupational fatalities, injuries, and illnesses. Since the Occupational Health and Safety Administration was established in 1971, occupational fatality rates in the United States have been cut in half and injury and illness rates have declined by 40 percent.

Providing workers with health and safety programs is the right thing to do. When a worker is injured, his or her entire family is affected. Injuries can mean many days or weeks out of work, or even permanent disability, causing serious economic hardship to a worker and their family. Potentially every aspect of an injured worker’s life is impacted; the pursuit of a career, leisure activities, personal and group relationships, and family responsibilities. 

According to OSHA, the Stanford Medical Center estimates that U.S. businesses spend more than $170 billion per year on costs associated with occupational injuries and illnesses—expenditures that are cut from company profits. Workplaces that establish health and safety leadership and management can reduce injury and illness cost by 20 to 40 percent.

Workplaces with the leadership of an industrial hygienist have fewer injuries, are usually rated as better places to work, and have more satisfied, more productive employees who are less likely to change jobs. This can result in decreased costs, increased productivity, and higher corporate profits.
Safety and health add value to business, to the workplace, and to people’s lives