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Week 4 – Hazard Recognition

Week 4 of National Safety Month focuses on Hazard Recognition. It is important to assess any worksite to determine present and potential hazards. This process can be done by the employer or other designated personnel during a job-site hazard assessment before work begins and entails a full job-site walk-through. During the walk-through, the employer and designated persons will point out all present hazards and items that have the potential to become a hazard in the future. Once a list of hazards on the job site is developed, a mitigation plan can be developed discussing the employer’s plan to fix and prevent the hazards.

The hazard assessment prior to beginning work is not the only way to recognize hazards. Regular worksite inspections can also be done to continuously check for hazards in the workplace.

Incident investigations can also be a good way to identify hazards. An incident investigation occurs after a near miss, injury, illness, or death. This investigation focuses on identifying and correcting the root cause of an incident. This provides the employer the opportunity to identify hazards in the workplace, correct them, and implement safety and health programs to reduce or prevent the hazards from occurring again.

Employers must understand the importance of hazard recognition. By recognizing workplace hazards; near misses, injuries, illnesses, and deaths can be reduced or prevented. Employers must always recognize hazards and correct them immediately to keep workers safe on the job.

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