Health and safety keywords

Absence rate
The rate of unplanned absences in an organisation due to sickness or other causes. Calculated by showing absence as a proportion of hours worked.

Absenteeism
Regularly not attending work or wilful absence, for example: striking. This does not include sickness absence for genuine reasons or being unable to attend work due to an accident.

Absorption
A route of entry for the uptake of chemicals through the skin or other external surface (such as mucous membrane, eye) into the bloodstream or tissues of  the body.

Acceptable risk
Risk that has been reduced to a level that may not cause significant harm. This is usually determined via a risk assessment, in accordance with an organisation’s occupational safety and health policy and its legal responsibilities.

Accident
An occurrence arising out of or in the course of work that results in either:

• a fatal occupational injury
• a non-fatal occupational injury
• work-related disease or ill health.

Accident frequency rate
The number of defined accidents, in a period, per one hundred thousand employee hours worked. The calculation commonly includes the number of defined accidents in period / total person hours worked in period x 100,000 hours.

Accident incidence rate
The number of defined accidents, in a period, per a thousand employees. The calculation commonly includes the number of accidents / average number of people employed x 1,000 employees.

Acute toxicity
The adverse effects resulting from a single exposure to a substance.

Administrative controls
Controls that alter the way the work is done. These include the timing of work, policies and other rules, and work practices such as standards and operating procedures (including training, housekeeping, equipment maintenance and personal hygiene practices).

Airborne
Airborne particles are carried in the air. This includes dust, dirt, smoke and soot particles which are small enough to be suspended and carried in the air.

Allergen
A substance that causes an allergic reaction in the body, such as a rash, anaphylactic shock or swelling. Example seafood, isocyanates.

As low as reasonably practicable (ALARP)
ALARP is a principle used in health and safety risk management to describe the level to which risks should be reduced.
or
ALARP means that the risk has been reduced to the lowest level that is reasonably practicable, balancing the risk against the time, trouble, cost, and physical difficulty of taking further measures.

Audit
A systematic, independent and documented process for obtaining evidence and evaluating it objectively to determine the extent to which the audit criteria are fulfilled.

Benchmarking
A mechanism for comparing performance against a level set by occupational safety and health (OSH) legislation or sector-agreed standards.

Beyond compliance
Refers to an approach to safety and health where organisations go further than the minimum legal or regulatory requirements to protect workers, promote well-being, and foster a proactive safety culture.

Business continuity
This involves planning for situations that an organisation has identified as affecting its core functions. The aim is mitigating loss and impact should the situation occur.

Civil law
The legal framework that balances competing interests between individuals, organisations or between the two, settled independently by the courts, in which compensation is awarded to the victim.

Competence
A combination of knowledge, skills, experience and attributes, which is a quality or feature regarded as a characteristic or inherent part of someone, and can also be described as attitudes or behaviours.

Confined space
A place that is substantially – although not necessarily entirely – enclosed and where serious injury can occur from hazardous substances or conditions within the space or nearby (for example: lack of oxygen).

Consultation
The action or process of formally discussing with workers/workers’ representatives before making a decision.

Continual improvement
A recurring activity to enhance performance.

Continuous improvement
A periodic activity to enhance performance.

Corrective action
Action to eliminate the cause(s) of a non-conformity or an incident, and to prevent recurrence.

Cost-benefit analysis
A balance between the level of risk and the measures needed to control it (in terms of costs, time and effort).

Criminal law
Laws (including Acts or Regulations) introduced by the state to suppress conduct that is harmful to society. It is the state that takes action in the courts to punish offenders and deter others.

Critical operational processes (COPs)
Activities, processes or services critical to the success of the business. If COPs are compromised, the output of the organisation would be reduced or stopped.

Culture
The shared characteristics, values and attitudes of a group of people. The 'way we do things here'.

Dangerous occurrence
The failure of plant, equipment or process containment, without human injury. In some countries, categories of dangerous occurrence are defined in law.

Elimination
Physically remove the hazard.

Emergency plan
A plan that has specific instructions to be followed in an emergency. The aim should be to evacuate all people from a dangerous situation or environment.

Engineering controls
Physical modifications to the workplace, equipment, or processes that reduce or eliminate exposure to hazards.

ESG framework
Isolate people from the hazard. These can be permanent features built into facilities or production processes.

Ethical business practices
ESG stands for environmental, social and governance. These are called pillars in ESG frameworks and represent the three main topic areas that companies are expected to report in. The goal of ESG is to capture all the non-financial risks and opportunities inherent to a company's day-to-day activities. It measures how businesses integrate environmental, social and governance practices into operations, as well as their impact on sustainability.

First aid
The immediate assistance given to any person suffering from either a minor or serious illness or injury. The care provided is to preserve life, prevent the condition from worsening or to promote recovery.

Foreseeability
An event or occurrence that could realistically happen but excluding the fanciful or bizarre. Often linked to reasonableness in order to limit further the scope of the occurrence to that which is predictable within the context being considered.

Governance
The system of rules, practices, processes and assurances by which an organisation is directed and controlled. They involve balancing the interests of a company’s many stakeholders, such as shareholders, senior management executives, customers, suppliers, financiers, the government and the community.

Hazard
Something with the potential to cause harm. The harm is defined as injury or damage to the health of people, or damage to property or the environment.

Health screening
Describes health assessments conducted for the purpose of determining the likelihood of a particular disease or condition being present in a cross-section of the worker population.

Health surveillance
A planned systematic recurrent collation of data from activities selected to identify known health effects of workplace exposures in worker populations.

Health and safety committee
A committee set up to consult with the workforce on a range of OSH issues, comprising representatives of workers and management.

Heat-related illness
A heat-related illness occurs when a person is exposed to extreme heat and the body is unable to regulate its internal temperature which can lead to physiological stress and potentially serious health conditions such as heat stroke. 

Hierarchy of control (HOC)
The order within which risk control types are prioritised and where the order reflects the effectiveness of a control compared to others.

Horizon scanning
A structured approach to explore what the future might look like to better understand its uncertainty.

Human centred approach
A method of working which places the worker at the centre of the approach to the task or project. It focuses on the human need of the worker.

Human factors
Scientific discipline concerned with understanding of interactions among human and other elements of a system. The human factors profession applies theory, principles, data and methods to design in order to optimise human wellbeing and overall system performance.

Human reliability
The degree to which people can be expected to perform to a specific standard. People are unable to perform to standard 100 per cent of the time and human error will occur.

Incident
An all-encompassing term that covers an event that leads to or could have led to injury, occupational ill-health, property damage or loss.

Inspection
Careful examination or scrutiny – a safety inspection would specifically involve an on-site walk through to identify potential hazards to workers and provide options for remedial action.

Investigation
The process by which an organisation identifies the cause(s) of an incident and takes forward any learning outcomes from it.

Key performance indicators (KPIs)
These are predetermined measures to be used in the assessment of progress against objectives either for an individual or in the wider context of the organisation.

Lagging indicators
Measures of historic data in the form of reactive monitoring, requiring the reporting and investigation of specific incidents and events to discover weaknesses in an activity or process.

Leading indicators
Proactive and predictive measures. Leading indicators provide current information about the effective performance, activities and processes of an OHSMS.

Legal framework
A term to collectively describe not only the core component of legislation itself but also the institutional, administrative, political, social and economic conditions or arrangements that make the legislation available, accessible, enforceable and therefore effective.

Legionella
Legionella is a bacteria which causes legionnaires’ disease. This is a potential fatal version of pneumonia. The bacterium are common in natural water sources. They can also be found in purpose-built water systems such as cooling towers and spa pools.

Legislation
Acts of Parliament (where applicable), statutory instructions and orders originating from the law relating to health and safety.

Likelihood
A judgment made on balance when weighing up all the relevant factors, particularly in the context of a risk assessment. It is not a precise statistical calculation, therefore being more aligned to the concept of possibility rather than probability.

Lost-time injury or illness
An occupational injury or illness that causes a loss of time from work.

Lone working
A worker who carries out work alone, without direct supervision for any amount of time.

Management system
A collection of policies, procedures and formal processes, and the allocation of responsibilities, set up to manage an organisation.

Manual handling
Tasks that require people to exert force to move/transport a load by lifting, putting down, pushing, pulling, carrying or moving thereof.

Medical surveillance
A planned systematic recurrent collation of data from activities selected to identify known health effects in target organs of exposed workers. These activities have a medical focus and are performed by a medical doctor.

Method statement
A formal description of how a task will be carried out safely.

Musculoskeletal disorder
Injuries or disorders that affect muscles, bones, joints and ligaments of the body.

Near miss
An event that did not involve injury or ill-health on this occasion but reasonably could have under different circumstances.

Noise-induced hearing loss
Irreversible damage caused by exposure to loud noise.

Occupational disease
Ill health contracted as a result of exposure to risk factors arising from work activity.

Occupational health (OH)
The promotion and maintenance of the highest degree of physical, mental and social wellbeing of workers in all occupations. This includes:

• the prevention among workers of departures from health caused by their working conditions
• the protection of workers in their employment from risks resulting from factors adverse to health
• the placing and maintenance of workers in an occupational environment adapted to their physiological and psychological conditions.

Occupational health and safety management system (OHSMS)
A collection of policies, procedures and formal processes, and the allocation of responsibilities, set up to manage OSH in an organisation.

Older workforce
A group within the workforce aged 50 years or over.

OSH
Acronym for occupational safety and health.

OSH legislation (legislation)
A term to collectively describe laws enacted by countries to set standards for the management of the impact of work on OSH.

OSH policy
A statement of intent by an organisation on OSH.

Performance
A measurement of the level of effectiveness of organisational activities against its benchmarks and standards, aimed at the prevention of death, injury, ill-health and wellbeing to persons in the workplace.

Permit to Work
A formal, controlled system of documentation to ensure that the controls in higher-risk activities, such as those covered by a Safe System of Work, are followed before, during and after the task.

Personal protective equipment (PPE)
Protective equipment worn by a worker to minimise potential injury or illness when exposed to workplace hazards.

Point of work or dynamic assessment A dynamic assessment is used when conditions may be subject to rapid changes where different control measures might need to be introduced at short notice to maintain a tolerable level of risk.

Presenteeism
The practice of coming to work despite illness, sickness, injury or mental ill-health, often resulting in reduced productivity. It also refers to staying at work excessively when one should not be there.

Proactive monitoring
The systematic and ongoing observation, measurement, and evaluation of workplace conditions, activities, and systems to identify potential risks before they result in incidents or harm.

Procedure
A specified sequence of steps to carry out an activity or a process.

Qualitative risk analysis
The use of physical evidence, experience and OSH performance indicators to form a current view on the likelihood of a predicted incident and its reasonable extent should it occur.

Quantitative risk analysis The use of factual and measurable data, calculations and other statistical processes to measure the probability of a defined outcome and its impact upon objectives.

Reactive monitoring
The process of analysing incidents, ill-health cases, and other events that have already occurred to understand what went wrong and how to prevent recurrence.

Reasonably foreseeable/foresight
Using competency to judge what is realistic to predict rather than bizarre or fanciful.

Reasonably practicable
A control measure for which the cost and effort of implementing it are not grossly disproportionate to the risk it is intended to mitigate.

Recovery control(s)
Refers to measures put in place to minimise the impact of an incident after it has occurred and to restore normal operations safely and efficiently.

Regulation
A legally binding rule or directive issued by a government or regulatory authority.

Residual risk
The level of risk remaining after risk reduction measures have been implemented.

Risk
OSH-related risk is the combination of the likelihood of a hazardous event occurring and the projected reasonable worst consequence of the event.

Risk appetite The amount and type of risk that an organisation is willing to tolerate to meet strategic objectives.

Risk assessment
The overall process to estimate a magnitude of risk, via risk analysis and a risk evaluation. This includes physical (safety and health) and mental health risks.

Risk control
A management process where all risk is analysed and a strategy developed for either removing, reducing, transferring or tolerating key elements in line with the organisation’s risk appetite.

Risk evaluation
Evaluate the severity of the risk. This means to weigh up the likelihood of harm and the severity of the harm.

Risk identification
The process of determining risks that could potentially pose a threat to an organisation, its processes, procedures or objectives, or a specific task.

Risk management
The process for identifying, analysing, assessing, controlling and mitigating intolerable risks within an organisation.

Risk profile
Threats to which a company or organisation is exposed. The risk profile outlines the number of risks, type of risk and potential effects of risks.

Risk register A tool used for documenting the results of the qualitative risk analysis, quantitative risk analysis, and risk response planning.

Risk tolerance
This is the amount of uncertainty an organisation is prepared to accept, either in total or more narrowly within a certain business unit, a risk category or for a specific initiative.

Risk treatment
The process of selecting and implementing measures to modify risk.

Root cause
The initiating factor or failing from which all other causes or failings develop.

Respiratory protective equipment (RPE)
Respiratory protective equipment worn by workers to protect from airborne contaminants.

Safe systems of work (SSOWs)
A systematic examination of a working process, which identifies hazards and specifies work methods designed either to eliminate the hazards or control and minimise the relevant risks.

Self-assessment
A process where individuals or organisations evaluate their own performance, risks, or competencies without external input. It is used to identify strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement in relation to health, safety, and well-being at work.

Significance
Something that matters or is meaningful within the context of the organisation.

Significant risk
This is one that could foreseeably result in a major incident occurring.

Smart personal protective equipment (PPE)
Smart PPE combines traditional PPE with electronics (for example, sensors and detectors). It can collect data from the environment.

Small and medium-sized enterprise (SME)
A company with a headcount of fewer than 250 people and a turnover of less than 50 million euros.

Standard
An agreed level of quality or attainment, or something used as a measure or norm.

Strategy
A description of an organisation's overall plan on how it will meet the business, transformational and operational objectives that it has set for itself.

Stress
A state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or demanding circumstances.

Substitution
Replace the hazard, with a less harmful solution. For example, substituting one hazardous chemical for a different less hazardous chemical.

Sustainability
Sustainability in the world of work refers to the commitment and practices aimed at achieving living and working conditions that support people in engaging and remaining in work throughout an extended working life. It emphasizes meeting present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. Sustainable work environments encourage responsible use of natural resources, energy conservation, and contribute to a better work culture.

Social sustainability
Social sustainability is about identifying and managing business impacts, both positive and negative, on people. The quality of a company's relationships and engagement with its stakeholders is critical.

Value chain
A value chain is the full sequence of activities that a business undertakes to deliver a product or service that is from  initial conception to final delivery and even disposal or recycling.

Violence and aggression
Work-related aggression and violence causes significant harm to another person who wishes to avoid it. This includes any incident in which a person is abused, threatened or assaulted in circumstances relating to their work. This definition includes physical assault as well as verbal threats, gestures and personal abuse.

Vulnerable workers
Individuals who are at greater risk of work-related injury, illness, or exploitation due to a combination of personal, job-related, and structural factors such as gender, ethnicity, educational level, age, shift work.

Waterborne
A disease that is transmitted through water.

Wellbeing
The holistic state of physical, mental, and social wellness experienced by individuals in the workplace. 

Welfare
Workplace facilities that promote the health, safety and wellbeing of workers. These can include toilet and washing facilities, rest and changing facilities, a place to store and dry clothing and somewhere clean to eat and drink during break times.

Work station
The equipment and space that employees require to fulfil their work.

Worker
Anyone who performs work or work-related activities that are under an organisation’s control.

Workplace
The area under the control of the organisation where the workers perform their activities. This can include other locations as well as the immediate workplace.