The Management of Risk: Application to the Welding Industry

The management of health risk in the welding industry is considered based on a discussion of the major sources of harm to welders arising from their employment (e.g., accidents and inhalation of fumes and gases). It is shown that present methods neither enable the assessment of the societal and human costs involved, nor permit the specific association of delayed health effects to occupational fume exposures. Reported accidents usually occur early in the working experience and contribute to a large number of working days lost, while fume exposures may contribute to a reduction in life quality which is poorly defined. It is concluded that risk management can only be attempted after much more information is made available concerning the origin, nature, and duration of health effects, especially as related to individual welding technologies and applications. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS The reduction of risk in the welding industry requires the development of an approach to risk management. Although it is difficult to demonstrate that welders on the average suffer excess risk when compared to similar skilled manual occupations, there is some evidence of possible high risk associated with certain welding operations: currently available information is extremely limited. It is extremely difficult to rank various types of potential risk. On the other hand it is possible to try to identify certain situations, individuals, combinations of circumstances which lead to excess occupational health risk. A complete picture of the risk infrastructure can be obtained by a proper survey of each enterprise. Steps can immediately be taken for the elimination of unnecessary risk, especially from accidents. The problems with respect to delayed health effects, especially cancer, are less tractable. In particular much effort must be placed in the strategies for the management of small excess risks of delayed health effects and large variations in inter‐individual risk susceptibilities.