I was born and raised in Panama. Owing to a combination of fortuitous events, my parents opted to move to the United States in the late 1980s, as I was starting my senior year of high school. For the next 20 years I studied and worked in the safety and industrial hygiene fields in the United States, although I “hung pumps” throughout Latin America while employed by a multinational company. The construction boom and growing economy that Panama experienced at the start of the century allowed me to return in 2008. As I immersed myself in the region from a professional standpoint, I quickly learned that great strides were taking place across Latin America in occupational health and safety, but equally large voids were forming in information and focus. Not long after my return to Panama, a local power company asked me to teach a course on illness prevention in welding operations to a group of its contractors. While I was describing metal fume fever caused by exposure to zinc fumes, one of the more experienced participants interrupted me. Addressing the rest of the class, a largely youthful crowd, he said, “When we built the La Fortuna hydroelectric plant [constructed in the ’80s in the western part of the country], we suffered constant fevers, and us welders always thought it was because of the dampness or depth of the tunnels we had to weld and work in. Nobody told us it could be due to exposure to welding fumes! Pay attention to what the instructor is saying. You still have time not to end up like me.”  It was clear to me that the man had suffered some ailments from his labor and was trying to pass down some wisdom. Today, more than 30 years have passed since his exposures. Over that time, I do not know how much headway has been made in work-related illness prevention in this part of the world, but several professionals, myself included, are vying to raise the profile of industrial hygiene and the impact it has on workers’ lives and companies’ bottom lines. 

In North America, one must often explain what an industrial hygienist does. In Latin America, the answer must be developed even further. Culturally in Central America, industrial hygiene still plays little brother in the great family that is the safety, health, and environmental professions. That the word “safety” translates closer to the term “security” in Spanish presents the first obstacle, as one must first clarify that safety is not about guarding installations. In Spain, safety professionals have skirted the issue by referring to themselves as “preventionists.” Calling industrial hygienists “occupational illness preventionists” seems to help the concept sink in.  In many organizations, responsibility for safety and health usually falls to a particular unit, either within human resources, medical, or, if the company is large or multinational, a safety branch. In many other cases, safety and health responsibilities are contracted out to a consultant. But mention “industrial hygiene,” and the buck starts rolling. Industrial hygienists in Central America face a bigger challenge in finding (top) management support than their colleagues in the U.S. because industrial hygiene may not have a place within their company’s organizational chart. For this reason, it is even more difficult to convince upper management of the value our profession adds to profitability through the betterment of workers’ health and to persuade them to include health-related objectives within performance goals or the organizational structure. In Latin America, industrial hygiene (and safety) regulations are difficult to talk about in general because of the differences among countries in population size, economic development, and industries. Overall, local regulations vary widely in scope, ranging from the very general to the very prescriptive. The conversation turns even fuzzier if we talk about regulations specific to illness prevention or industrial hygiene versus accident avoidance or safety.  Latin American countries and territories with more robust regulations include Puerto Rico (where OSHA has jurisdiction), Mexico (whose norms are heavily influenced  by OSHA), Colombia, Peru, Brazil, Chile, and Argentina. These countries have exploited mineral deposits, oil fields, and their related industries; they also have large agricultural and textile activities and, therefore, more specific standards and regulations. The economies of smaller Central American countries are heavily based on services; therefore, safety and industrial hygiene regulations might not be as comprehensive. For example, the U.S. has a separate standard for confined space requirements, but in Panama these requirements amount to a handful of articles within a general standard.  In Central America, an OHS professional must be aware of jurisdictions that have few regulations but very strict requirements on specific hazards, such as radiation or asbestos. Some jurisdictions have regulations that are overly prescriptive or that lack definitions. For example, a reference standard for noise in Panama requires audiograms but does not specify trigger points. Colombia is struggling with a recent law that requires documented management systems for all employers regardless of size or operation, and another requirement that compensates workers with early retirement if they can prove exposure to heat stress.  In Panama, three technical standards related to industrial hygiene are worthy of note. These standards, all published between 2000 and 2001, regulate exposures to chemical substances, noise, and vibration. Among their merits, these standards require new workplaces to be designed so that exposures do not to exceed occupational limits; they also require hazard communication information in Spanish, medical surveillance, and adherence to the hierarchy of controls. Shortcomings include the high frequency of chemical substance monitoring—monthly or biweekly if exposures are up to three times or greater than three times the exposure limit; the establishment of the ACGIH Threshold Limit Value as a legal requirement, against ACGIH’s recommendation; and the lack of revision since the standards were introduced. Examples of the incorporation of hygiene aspects into regulations include a Panamanian regulation promulgated by the social security system for general industry and one from Panama’s ministry of labor for the construction industry, both of which require the establishment and implementation of “occupational health, safety, and hygiene” programs and committees.