Understanding the relationship between occupational and environmental health and their representative agencies, OSHA and EPA, must be done in a historical context. While each federal agency has existed for only 30 years, their roots in this nation’s public health movement go back to the 1800’s, during the height of the industrial revolution. The events that led to their creation are intertwined in a complex mesh of social movements that responded differently to changes in the political, economic and social climate of the times.
The disconnection of OSHA and EPA policy frameworks has resulted in continued reinforcement of end-of-pipe solutions to hazards in the work and general environments. Regulation from both agencies still focus on the control of occupational and environmental hazards with primary prevention based policies being promoted under voluntary programs. Without the integration of OSHA and EPA efforts toward the prevention of occupational and environmental hazards, primary prevention cannot be achieved. There will continue to be risk shifting between and among workplace and environmental media, unless both the workplace and the general environments are considered as equally important media affected by changes made within each sector. Pollution prevention can serve as a model to integration and can therefore lead to a strategy of primary prevention within both OSHA and EPA policy frameworks.
Learning Objectives: This presentation will provide a brief review of the occupational and environmental health movements throughout history, focusing on periods where they have been linked and where they have diverged. It will highlight the regulatory and policy frameworks with respect to workplace and environment that have caused the inability of OSHA and EPA to coordinate their efforts to protect the public. Components of the Pollution Prevention Act and its limitations regarding enforcement of pollution prevention, as well as its disconnection from the work environment will be presented. This presentation will finish by looking at the barriers to integrating the occupational and environmental health paradigms and promoting primary prevention as the intervention of choice when considering less hazardous activities.
Keywords: Occupational Health, Environmental Health
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
Disclosure not received
Relationship: Not Received.