ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overall atmosphere of the hegemony within which occupational safety and health (OSH) problems are perceived or not and acted upon or not. It considers the individual’s perception and use of information within the context of dominant influence. The chapter also considers some problematic aspects of the OSH information system. Ambiguity is present in matters of health and sickness and in the definitions of work hazards as in all aspects of social life. The dynamics of social life could be said to revolve around the element of ambiguity. The awareness of scientific knowledge production as just another arena in which social processes of production are at work has been growing. A country’s ongoing, day-to-day OSH surveillance and reporting system should have a number of facets to it. An important place to begin correcting many problematic aspects of OSH information systems would be to put more and more adequate information in the hands of workers and their representatives.
