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Industrial Hygiene | October 22, 2025
Industrial hygiene consulting is focused on identifying and mitigating workplace hazards that could affect the health and safety of employees or the community. Industrial hygienists assess potential risks, evaluate exposures, and design scientifically based strategies to control health and safety hazards.
Industrial hygiene programs ensure that organizations meet requirements established by agencies such as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as well as guidelines from professional organizations including the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH), the American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA), and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).
An effective industrial hygiene program goes beyond regulatory compliance. Properly designed and implemented programs help organizations protect worker health and improve overall workplace performance.
Learn more about our industrial hygiene and occupational health services.
The types of occupational hazards addressed by industrial hygiene consulting can vary significantly depending on the industry, processes involved, and work environment. However, most workplace risks fall into three primary categories: chemical, physical, and biological. Understanding how each affects worker health is essential to developing effective exposure assessment and control strategies.
Chemical hazards are among the most common and significant risks in occupational settings. Workers may be exposed to hazardous substances through inhalation, skin absorption, ingestion, or injection. These exposures can occur during the use, handling, storage, or disposal of chemicals and can lead to a range of adverse health outcomes, from acute irritation to chronic diseases, organ damage, or cancer.
Examples of chemical hazards include solvents, acids, and bases; heavy metals such as lead, mercury, arsenic, and cadmium; welding fumes and combustion by-products; volatile organic compounds (VOCs); pesticides; and nanomaterials.
Exposure risks are influenced by factors such as chemical concentration and the duration and route of exposure, as well as environmental conditions and work practices. Accurate exposure assessment and well-designed control strategies are essential for reducing worker risk and ensuring regulatory compliance.
Physical hazards are harmful forms of energy and environmental conditions that do not involve chemical or biological agents. One of the most prevalent physical hazards is noise, which can cause permanent hearing loss with prolonged exposure above OSHA’s permissible exposure limit of 90 dBA over an eight-hour workday. Noise exposure can also contribute to fatigue, stress, and decreased productivity.
Vibration from handheld tools or heavy machinery is another common physical hazard that can lead to circulatory and neurological disorders. Thermal stress, including both heat and cold exposure, poses risks ranging from heat exhaustion and heat stroke to frostbite and hypothermia. Workers may also encounter ionizing and non-ionizing radiation, pressure extremes, and mechanical energy hazards from moving equipment or impact forces.
Ergonomic hazards, though sometimes treated as a distinct category, are closely associated with physical hazards because they arise from force, motion, and mechanical stress on the body. Repetitive motions, awkward postures, heavy lifting, and poorly designed workstations can lead to musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), one of the leading causes of occupational injuries and lost workdays. Ergonomic evaluations and engineering controls can significantly reduce these risks by aligning job demands with worker capabilities.
Biological hazards involve exposure to microorganisms or biological materials that can pose significant risks to worker health. These include bacteria, viruses, fungi, parasites, and biological toxins, as well as bloodborne pathogens. Such exposures are most common in healthcare, laboratory, agricultural, and wastewater treatment settings but can occur in many other environments as well.
Routes of exposure include inhalation, skin contact, ingestion, and accidental injection. Without proper controls, biological hazards can lead to infectious disease transmission, allergic reactions, and other health effects. Effective control strategies include ventilation systems, containment controls, hygiene practices, vaccination programs, and the use of appropriate personal protective equipment.
Effective industrial hygiene consulting uses a systematic, science-based approach to hazard identification and control. The process typically includes:
Industrial hygienists begin by evaluating processes, materials, and work practices to identify potential sources of exposure. This may include air monitoring, surface sampling, biological monitoring, noise measurements, radiation surveys, and other types of assessments. Advanced tools like exposure and contaminant dispersion modeling and exposure simulation studies can also be used to evaluate current conditions or reconstruct past exposures when direct monitoring is not feasible.
Understanding how hazardous agents reach workers through inhalation, dermal absorption, ingestion, or injection is a key part of risk assessment. Identifying these exposure pathways allows consultants to design targeted control strategies.
Once hazards and exposures are characterized, they are evaluated against regulatory limits (e.g., OSHA PELs, MSHA PELs) and best management practices (e.g., ACGIH TLVs, NIOSH RELs) and other health-based guidelines. This helps prioritize the most significant risks and focus resources where they will have the greatest impact.
Industrial hygienists use the hierarchy of controls — elimination, substitution, engineering controls, administrative controls, and personal protective equipment (PPE) — to develop risk-based, practical solutions. Engineering controls such as ventilation systems, process enclosures, or noise barriers are preferred because they reduce exposure without relying on worker behavior. Administrative controls, training, and PPE can then provide additional layers of protection.
While many hazards are common across industries, each sector presents unique challenges that require tailored solutions. Industrial hygiene consulting identifies, evaluates, and controls process-specific health risks across diverse work settings. Examples include:
Mining operations generate airborne hazards such as silica dust, diesel particulate matter, and other chemical exposures, as well as physical hazards such as noise exposure, and often in confined or remote locations. Industrial hygiene assessments may include air sampling, dust control strategies, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling to predict contaminant behavior in ventilation systems and confined spaces.
Healthcare settings involve biological hazards from pathogens and chemical exposures from sterilants, disinfectants, anesthetic gases, and hazardous drugs, as well as radiation sources such as non-ionizing exposures from ultraviolet disinfection systems, lasers, and radiofrequency or magnetic fields associated with magnetic resonance imaging. Consultants may evaluate ventilation and room pressurization, verify infection-control protocols, assess containment and handling of hazardous drugs (e.g., hood performance and closed-system transfer devices), and review radiation safety programs.
Manufacturing can present a wide range of occupational health hazards such as chemical exposures from solvents, VOCs, welding fumes, and metalworking fluids, as well as noise exposure from machinery. Industrial hygienists will develop a customized exposure assessment that may include air sampling, direct-reading screening, surface or wipe sampling, or noise monitoring and mapping, as well as process evaluations to design effective engineering controls and PPE programs.
Laboratory environments can present occupational health risks from chemicals and biological agents such as exposure to corrosive, toxic, carcinogenic, or mutagenic chemicals, flammable liquids and solids, irritants and respiratory sensitizers, as well as from radiation and other physical hazards. Industrial hygiene consulting may include developing a chemical hygiene plan, ventilation assessments and fume hood performance testing, reviewing disinfection protocols, potent compound handling guidance, indoor air quality investigations, nanoparticle exposure assessments, and development of lab-specific safety programs and training.
By tailoring hazard identification and control strategies to the specific risks of each industry, industrial hygiene services help organizations implement effective, practical solutions that improve workplace safety and support regulatory compliance.
Occupational hazards are inevitable in nearly every work environment, but their impact can be minimized, and sometimes eliminated, through proactive risk management strategies. Industrial hygiene services help organizations:
As workplaces evolve with new technologies, materials, and processes, the need for experienced industrial hygiene professionals to assess and control hazards is increasingly critical.
C&IH’s multidisciplinary team, including Certified Industrial Hygienists (CIHs), board-certified toxicologists (DABTs), and professional simulation engineers (PSEs), helps organizations across industries to identify, evaluate, and manage occupational hazards with scientifically rigorous methods and customized solutions.
Contact us to learn how partnering with our team can help safeguard employee health and advance your organization’s long-term health and safety initiatives.
C&IH provides national and international consulting from our office located near Denver, Colorado.