• Health effects from hazardous chemicals
• Managing the risk
• Specific chemicals

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Health effects from hazardous chemicals

It is important when using hazardous chemicals in the workplace that they are properly controlled if they are:

• toxic
• harmful
• corrosive
• irritant
• sensitising
• carcinogenic (causing cancer)
• mutagenic (causing genetic damage)
• teratogenic (causing abnormalities of the foetus).

Some of the health effects of exposure to hazardous chemicals include:

• skin irritation
• occupational asthma
• systemic chemical poisoning
• chemical burns from corrosives
• cancer.

Factors that determine whether illness or disease occurs include:

• amount (dose) absorbed and route of exposure
• cumulative length of time of exposure
• age at which exposure began
• simultaneous exposure to other hazardous chemicals
• sensitivity to the chemical's effects.

Some of the ways hazardous chemicals can enter the body include:

• breathing in (inhalation)
• skin contact (where skin is the target organ)
• absorbed through the skin and mucous membranes of the eye
• accidentally swallowed by eating or smoking with contaminated hands
• accidental injection through the skin.

These health effects can be acute, resulting from short term (usually high level) exposure, or chronic, resulting from long term (often low level) exposure over a period of time. Chronic effects may not occur for many years and the cause is often hard to identify.