Should you as an individual know about the risks to your health that could arise due to work, workplace or working condition (3Ws), or even an external environment.

Well, knowing risks to your health around you will help you take some basic precautions to prevent illness that can happen due to 3Ws or environment, however trivial or insignificant the illness might appear.

Many a times an insignificant looking illness turns out to be a serious disease later on.

Having knowledge of identifying risks to health becomes especially useful if you happen to work in a small office where access to doctor specializing in prevention of work-related diseases [Occupational Health (OH) physician] is unavailable or impossible.

Knowing risks to your health around you will help you take some basic precautions to prevent illness that can happen due to work, workplace or working conditions and even due to the environment, however trivial or insignificant the illness might appear.

In fact, finding access to expertise on work-related illnesses is a challenge in developing countries due to multiple reasons, one of them being shortage of OH physicians. In fact, even in United Kingdom the access to OH is estimated to be around 50%.

During an illness it is always good to keep in mind that the illness could be due to the 3Ws or environment. The illness could be managed if the factors contributing to it are found and controlled, and many a times it is not so difficult if there is awareness to the fact that an illness could be due to 3Ws or environment.

Knowledge of identifying risks to health becomes especially useful if you happen to work in a small office where access to doctor specializing in prevention of work-related diseases [Occupational Health (OH) physician] is unavailable or impossible.

Example 1: An employee works in a small office. The job is essentially computer-based. Towards the second half of the day a strong glare hits the computer screen due to a reflection from a glass in an adjoining building. The glare leads to headache in the employee. The employee reports to the business owner who understands the problem and fixes a thicker curtain as this is the only option possible in a small office.

In the above example, it was a simple problem that could be dealt with even if the workplace had no access to expertise of an Occupational Health physician. Awareness, alertness, compassion, and the willingness to solve an employee’s problem is all that is required sometimes to manage an illness arising due to 3Ws or environment.

Example 2: An employee takes a bus to reach the office every day. Soon after reaching the office the employee starts getting sneeze and occasional dry cough. An alert employee who has understood that an illness can occur due to 3Ws or environment will try to reason out and may perhaps rightly attribute it to the dust cloud that the bus creates at the bus stop. To prevent dust exposure the next step is start wearing a mask while awaiting for the bus. Soon the employee realizes that after the use of mask, the sneeze and dry cough are dramatically reduced or gone. The employee was allergic to dust and when a barrier was created by wearing the mask the exposure to dust was controlled that resulted in reduction in symptoms.

Many commuters who travel by local transport, especially bus are victims of allergic sneeze and cough. At a community level, the government must make the roads dust free.

At a personal level, individuals could prevent the allergic sneeze and cough or any other illness (caused by inhalation of dust) in the long run by wearing a mask.

There are many other diseases that an individual can prevent by taking appropriate precautions as seen below.

Example 3: A small office has a small pantry and a pantry boy appointed to make tea/coffee and heat up employees’ food as requested. The pantry becomes stuffy and ill-ventilated especially during summers. The pantry boy brings out this issue during informal conversations with employees. The employees talk about this to the business owner who understands and immediately sanctions funds to install a table fan as well as an exhaust fan. The pantry boy is thankful to everyone and works even more efficiently and happily.

The 3 examples above are just a few scenarios that individuals can manage in preventing the 3Ws or the environment affect health. There are many more scenarios where employees can act to protect their health based on Awareness and Alertness while the business owners can support if they have Compassion and Willingness to make changes. 

Of course, there are complex situations or when the employees or the business owners are unable to pinpoint the problem, and expertise of an OH physician is required.

To obtain OH access, large companies or MSME (Micro Small Medium Enterprises) may contact

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Dr Ajay Sati is an Occupational Health physician who prefers to describe himself as an Occupationist, to denote, ‘an expert in diseases and other concerns of occupations’. Dr Sati has managed health and wellness programs in industries he worked, like the atomic energy, and energy (oil & gas) in India and overseas. He was involved in many greenfield and brownfield projects providing inputs from health point of view. Known for SOPs and protocols, he is currently involved with an energy MNC in designing protocols to support employees during the covid pandemic, and protocols to safely reopen offices and plants.