Office - a risk to health and wellbeing?

A person working in an office is clearly at much less risk of injury than an employee on a construction site or an engineering workshop. But, there are numerous statistics showing that office work does pose a risk to health, safety and wellbeing.

What are the hazards? And health and safety problems related to office work?
- Occupational stress
- Musculoskeletal disorders (affecting back, upper limbs and neck)
- Slips and trips

DSE Risks:
Display screen equipment or more commonly computer workstations – the DSE users are increasing exponentially in recent years. DSE is not inherently dangerous to any health problems; the injuries, predominantly upper limb disorders (ULDs – aches and pain in hands, wrists, arms, shoulders and neck), results due to inappropriate working methods or poor organisation or insufficient breaks etc.
Some tips on using DSE / VDU (visual display unit)
- Get comfortable: adjust the screens, seats (height and posture), keyboard, mouse and documents to suit you; your forearms should be approximately horizontal and your eyes the same height as the top of VDU, free space for leg movement, avoid glare and reflections
- Keying in: a space in front of the keyboard is sometimes helpful for resting hand and wrists
- Mouse: use it with wrist straight, not stretched, loose grips
- Screen: adjust brightness, contrast to suit the lighting in the room, clean screen surface, suitable text size
- Posture and breaks: change posture, avoid repeated stretching to reach things you need, frequent short breaks
Source: www:hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg36.pdf

Assess the risk:
This should include risk from all the hazards identified in the office and related activities (workstation, stress, manual handling, electrical equipment, fire, ventilation, lighting, slips, trips, violence, noise etc).
Workstation: The ergonomic principle to follow is that the equipment should fit the worker, rather than forcing the worker to fit the equipment. In order to find what suits, a risk assessment need to be carried out.
There are numerous publications and checklist available for office safety and some specifically for DSE risk.
Eg. “the law on VDUs: An easy guide” (HSG90 ISBN 0-7176-2602-4)
www.hse.gov.uk/msd/index.htm
www.hse.gov.uk/electricity/information/maintenance.htm
www.hse.gov.uk/temperature/thermal
http://www.labtrain.noaa.gov/osha600/refer/menu15d.pdf
http://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/ergonomics/office/
http://www.comcare.gov.au/safety/virtual_office



Related regulations:
- UK, Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999
- UK, Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992
- US OSHA – 29 CFR Part 1910 http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=FEDERAL_REGISTER&p_id=16305&bcsi_scan_42F16C56A779BF44=0&bcsi_scan_filename=owadisp.show_document
- Australia OHS Act 1991
- Australia OHS(CE)A(EIC) Act 2004 http://www.comcare.gov.au/ohs_legislation/ohs_acts__and__regulations