Fundamentals of Occupational Safety Engineering

This course approaches Occupational Safety as a multidisciplinary field involving medicine, engineering, education, and psychology, with the objective of identifying, assessing, controlling, and eliminating workplace hazards, ensuring workers’ physical, mental, and social well-being. Historically, this need emerged during the Industrial Revolution, and in Brazil, the key milestones are the Consolidation of Labor Laws (CLT, 1943) and the Regulatory Standards (NRs, 1978). The absence of safety leads to profound socioeconomic impacts, with the hidden costs of accidents being up to 10 times higher than the direct costs, according to the “Iceberg Theory.”

The course details workplace protection systems: Regulatory Standards (NRs) as mandatory guidelines; Collective Protective Equipment (CPE) to neutralize risks at the source; Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) as the last line of defense; and standardized Safety Signage to guide and warn about risks. In addition, the course presents accident classifications: personal accidents (with or without injury), commuting accidents (between home and work), and material accidents (involving only property damage).

Finally, the course explores accident management, investigation, and prevention, following a continuous cycle that includes immediate reporting (CAT), investigation of causes using tools such as the “5 Whys” and the “Cause Tree,” application of the Hierarchy of Risk Controls (Elimination, Substitution, Engineering and Administrative Controls, and PPE), and monitoring through reactive and proactive indicators, promoting an organizational culture of prevention and continuous improvement.