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How did the Industrial Revolution increase occupational health hazards?
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occupational disease
The lung disease asbestosis is caused primarily by prolonged inhalation of asbestos fibers. It occurs mainly among workers whose occupations involve exposure to asbestos and people who live near mines, factories, and construction sites.
The Industrial Revolution significantly increased occupational health hazards by fundamentally altering the nature of work and the environment in which it was performed. The transition from the domestic system to the factory system concentrated workers in urban centers, often within crowded, unsanitary, and poorly ventilated facilities.123
Key factors contributing to the rise in occupational diseases and injuries included:
- Dangerous Machinery: The introduction of power-driven machinery led to a higher frequency of workplace accidents and fatalities.12
- Toxic Exposure: Workers faced increased contact with hazardous materials, such as the flue dusts that caused scrotal cancer in chimney sweeps.1
- Respiratory Hazards: The prevalence of dust in environments like mines and metal-grinding shops caused chronic lung diseases, as documented by early occupational medicine pioneers like Charles Turner Thackrah.1
- Poor Working Conditions: Factories were frequently cluttered, unsafe, and required long hours, which, combined with substandard living conditions in rapidly growing industrial cities, severely compromised worker health.3
These harsh realities eventually spurred the development of occupational medicine and the implementation of legal protections, such as factory inspection systems, to safeguard worker well-being.1