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Occupational Health

​Occupational safety and health (OSH), also commonly referred to as occupational health and safety (OHS), occupational health,[1] or occupational safety, is a multidisciplinary field concerned with the safety, health, and welfare of people at occupation. These terms also refer to the goals of this field,[2] so their use in the sense of this article was originally an abbreviation of occupational safety and health program/department etc.

The goal of an occupational safety and health program is to foster a safe and healthy occupational environment.[3] OSH also protects all the general public who may be affected by the occupational environment.[4]

Globally, more than 2.78 million people die as a result of workplace-related accidents or diseases, translating to one death every fifteen seconds. There is an additional 374 million non-fatal work-related injuries annually. It is estimated that the economic burden of occupational-related injury and death is nearly four per cent of the global Gross Domestic Product each year.[5] The human cost of this adversity is enormous.

In common-law jurisdictions, employers have a common law duty (also called duty of care) to take reasonable care of the safety of their employees.[6] Statute law may, in addition, impose other general duties, introduce specific duties, and create government bodies with powers to regulate occupational safety issues: details of this vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.