Every day, billions of people go to work. Many of them will get sick or injured somehow. Often, these problems aren't from avoidable accidents or substances, but the work itself. Industrial hygienists study these diseases and advise employers and workers about how to reduce them.
"I love the combination of technical and 'human sciences' work," says hygienist Tom Grumbles.
"I get to work with nearly every department in the company. It's not always in our manufacturing sites, but could be in marketing, in helping one of our chemical customers, or research and development in evaluating a new chemical. In total, the job is about helping the company and our people stay healthy and safe. What could be better?"
Kathy Smolynec, an industrial hygienist for a railway company, agrees. "It's really a fun profession," she says. "Within the career, you can take it in many different directions. It's very self-directed. No one tells you what to do. It's very varied."
Smolynec says an industrial hygienist can work in the private or public sectors. She adds that one can become an inspector, a scientific specialist, a manager or a bureaucrat. Additionally, she says there are opportunities to write textbooks, scientific papers and pamphlets.
Industrial hygienist Stewart Sampson says it is a methodical science and generally not a high-paced, emergency-oriented profession.
"Hygienists do not generally face think-fast situations," he says. "The issues with which we deal, while extremely serious, generally do not require split-second decision making."
Many industrial hygienists say workers sometimes use their findings for increased wages, vacation time and medical benefits demands. Managers, on the other hand, are often motivated by profit margins to resist scientific findings, according to Grady Russell, a Kentucky-based industrial hygienist.
"Industrial hygiene doesn't add to the bottom line of a company," says Russell. "We don't make them profit. We save them loss, and you can't always show that because a loss averted didn't happen."
He says that sometimes companies hire industrial hygienists to satisfy government regulations, which can cause resentment. "You'll sometimes hear, 'We only got him because of OSHA [Occupational Safety and Health Administration of the U.S. Department of Labor].'"
However, Russell notes that many companies go beyond government regulations to insure worker health. He says that large car manufacturers were hiring industrial hygienists in the 1920s because they saw that healthy employees produced more than unhealthy ones.
John R. Orser, an industrial hygienist, says that sometimes the employees he's hired to help are suspicious of his motives.
"Workers sometimes view me as part of company management, because management 'pays for my time,'" he says. "I constantly have to stress to workers that I am an independent operator, that I must be honest at all times and obey the various codes of ethics that govern all professional hygienists."
Sampson says industrial hygienists sometimes have to explain technical health information to workers who don't have scientific training and sometimes don't even speak the same language. He says this makes for interesting challenges at times.
"I have been asked to explain the health effects of pesticides to immigrant farm workers," he says. "The information you have is in English. The workers speak only Ukrainian.
"You do have a Ukrainian interpreter. However, that person does not know any technical or scientific words that you feel you need for the session. How do you overcome this?"
Additionally, Sampson says an industrial hygienist can face other difficult situations and tough choices.
"During an inspection of a hospital, you note that there are no appropriate precautions used when handling tissue samples in the lab. The lack of such precautions makes AIDS, hepatitis and similar diseases a real risk for lab technicians, who could prick, and thus infect, themselves at any moment," he explains.
"However, to protect the technicians, you must close the lab, stopping all testing. This puts the patients at risk. Which do you do: close the lab to protect the workers or leave the lab open to protect the patients?"
Sampson adds that these challenges and tough choices are what he loves about being an industrial hygienist. "The work of helping protect others is intrinsically rewarding," he says. "Perhaps the aspect I love the most is training [others to be safer and healthier]. There is nothing I truly dislike."
Smolynec estimates that about 30 percent of hygienists are women. She figures that within another 20 years, the figure will be 50 percent.
Russell says he enjoys the opportunities to help people that his job gives him. "I may be working with employees who don't know what they've been breathing [during a chemical leak]," he says. "All they know is that it stinks and burns their throats. And a lot of times, they're scared.
"You have to communicate with those people in simple terms they understand -- not in big, technical terms -- and do so in a way that comforts them."