The International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) presents the Good Practice Guidance on Occupational Health Risk Assessment (HRA) as an information resource for those conducting or commissioning HRAs. According to the International Labour Organization 160 million people in the world suffer occupation related illnesses every year. Reducing the number of such cases inside the mining and metals industry is one of the key challenges of ICMM members. The new ICMM guidance describes 13 key steps for carrying out a HRA, from identifying the health hazards and their effects, to assessing exposure levels and analysing the effectiveness of existing control measures.
The 68-page guide offers information on three types of assessments and includes several check lists and step-by-step guides to aid managers in the design and implementation of health risk assessments. Health risk assessment involves four key elements:
⦥ Identification of hazards
⦥ Examination of the potential health effects
⦥ Measurement of exposures
⦥ Characterisation of the risk.
An HRA is therefore the structured and systematic identification and analysis of workplace hazards with the aim of reducing the risks of exposure to these hazards through the development and implementation of avoidance, control and control failure recovery measures. In the occupational setting, it is the preliminary component to health risk management.
Health risk management is the decision-making process involving considerations of political, social, economic and engineering factors combined with risk assessment information to develop, analyse and compare options and to select between them.
An HRA is generally a cyclical and iterative process rather than a simple linear one, and is normally made up of the following steps:
1 Identify the health hazards and their harmful health effects
2 Identify the exposed individuals and groups (i.e. Similar Exposure Groups)
3 Identify the processes, tasks and areas where hazardous exposures could occur
4 Assess, measure or verify the exposures
5 Analyse the effectiveness of existing control measures
6 Analyse the potential health risks of the hazardous exposures (e.g. compare against occupational exposure limits)
7 Prioritise the health risks (high, medium and low)
8 Anticipate potential new and emerging health risks
9 Establish a risk register
10 Set priorities for action
11 Develop, implement and monitor a risk control action plan or review existing risk control action plan
12 Maintain accurate and systematic records of the HRA or amend existing Risk Control Action Plan and use alternative and/or additional control measures
13 Review and amend at regular intervals or earlier if changes to processes or new developments are proposed.
ICMM is currently working on a sister publication – Health Impact Assessment Good Practice Guidance – that will be published later this year. It focuses on the environmental, social and health impacts of a mining operation on the people who live near it and how these hazards must be assessed.