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Investigating Illnesses
Is Your Job Making You Sick?

Many health hazards are never corrected because the workers do not realize that illnesses they suffer are being caused by their work.

Before assuming an illness is not work-related, a worker and the safety committee should look for possible clues.

1.  Is the illness linked to a work­place hazard by books, fact sheets, or other materials in the safety committee's files?

2.  Does common sense tell you there may be a link between a hazard and an illness?

Are the health problems worse dur­ing the work week‑‑when the worker is exposed to the hazard? Do they get better on weekends and vacations?

Did the illness begin shortly after the worker was exposed to a new chemical or an unusually large amount of a chemical?

Are there other workers in the same job or department suffering from the same problem?

If the answer to any of these ques­tions is yes, it may be necessary to protect the workers without waiting for long, complicated scientific stu­dies.

If many workers are suffering the same health problems and you can't figure out what the hazard is, you may want to ask your union representa­tives to help you get additional advice.

Courtesy of TheWorkSite.org.