Occupational and environmental health nursing is a specialty nursing practice that focuses on promotion, protection and restoration of workers’ health and safety within the context of healthful and safety environments. As healthcare providers and part of the second-fastest-growing sector of the U.S. economy, occupational and environmental health nurses (OHNs) must also focus on promotion, protection and restoration of healthcare workers’ health and safety.
In the healthcare environment, health care providers, such as OHNs, face a wide range of job hazards. The OHN or healthcare provider must be able to recognize and identify those hazards as having a direct or indirect affect on their work environment and them as workers. Examples of factors or potential hazards that have an affect on the health of healthcare worker and environment includes, but are not limited to, needlestick injuries, musculoskeletal injuries, latex allergy, workplace violence, workplace stress, shift work, staffing.
AAOHN believes that a key factor in the nursing shortage is the quality of work environment, which contributes to the high injury and illness rates found in the nursing profession.
Related to quality of work environment, AAOHN has provided the following resources and association responses:
