ABSTRACT

New and emerging risks represent a topical issue in the area of occupational health and safety. New and emerging risks appear in locations in which new machines and machinery are applied within new technologies, materials, and processes, or under the inuence of various factors stemming from corporate social changes, that is, where new forms of organization of work are applied, for instance:

• Nanotechnologies, nanoparticles, and very discrete particles • Mechatronic systems (e.g. modern automobiles, robots, automated cranes) • Biotechnologies • Renewable energy sources • Linear production processes • Time-limited work agreements • Aging employees • Growing work intensity • Using Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) techniques

(hardware + software) and technologies • Combined load on muscle-skeleton body system and psycho-social risk fac-

tors (e.g. uncertain future of people and families), general uncertainties

A new risk is a risk that:

• has not yet existed and is caused by new processes, technologies, workplaces, and organizational or social changes, or

• is a long-term problem reconsidered to be a risk as a result of changes in the social or public perception, or

• a long-term unsolved problem that is re-evaluated as a risk based on new scientic discoveries.