Fundamentals of Occupational Safety and Health, 8th Edition
By Mark A. Friend, James P. Kohn
About this ebook
Fundamentals of Occupational Safety and Health, Eighth Edition, introduces workplace hazard control and safety program management for students and practitioners. Mark A. Friend and James P. Kohn connect legislation and professional responsibilities with industrial hygiene, ergonomics, accident investigation, fire prevention, emergency planning, and employee safety education.
Inside this title
Physical, chemical, biological, and ergonomic workplace hazard coverage
Current listed price $31.99Regular price $58.00Digital ebook
This introductory reference treats workplace safety as both a technical subject and an organizational responsibility. Physical, chemical, biological, and ergonomic hazards are considered alongside methods for assessing exposure and selecting controls. Its treatment of legislation and standards provides context for the responsibilities discussed throughout the book.
Program planning, incident analysis, training, and communication connect individual safety topics with day-to-day management. Chapters include learning objectives, examples, and review questions, giving instructors and independent learners a structure for study. Industrial hygiene, environmental safety, fire prevention, and emergency preparedness broaden its scope beyond accident prevention alone. The eighth edition suits occupational safety students and professionals seeking an organized introduction to the field.
Study guide included
Inside Fundamentals of Occupational Safety and Health, 8th Edition.
Safety work sits between engineering and management: a hazard must be recognized, measured and controlled, then embedded in a program people actually follow. Friend and Kohn introduce that whole chain, from legislation and exposure assessment through training, incident investigation and emergency planning, with review material for students entering the field.
The eighth edition presents occupational safety as a set of linked responsibilities. It begins with the hazards themselves, physical, chemical, biological and ergonomic, and with the standards and legislation that define acceptable practice. Exposure assessment and the hierarchy of controls follow, giving the reader a way to move from recognition to intervention. Program planning, employee training and communication then place technical decisions inside an organization. Accident investigation, root cause analysis and corrective action show how incidents feed back into prevention, while industrial hygiene, fire prevention and emergency preparedness widen the scope beyond slips and strains. Learning objectives, examples and review questions make the text usable in a course or for independent study.
The four hazard families
Hazards are grouped so that recognition becomes systematic: physical agents, chemical substances, biological exposures and ergonomic demands. Each family raises different questions about how harm occurs and what evidence reveals it. The book keeps the categories connected, since a single task may combine noise, solvent exposure, repetitive motion and an infectious risk, and controls aimed at one may affect another.
Hazards are grouped for systematic recognition
Each family raises different evidence questions
One task can combine several hazard types
Topics 1–3
Legislation, standards and duty
Rules and standards supply the frame within which safety decisions are made and defended. The text discusses the legislation that establishes duties and the professional obligations that follow from them. Rather than presenting compliance as the goal, it treats regulation as a floor and asks what a responsible program owes workers beyond the minimum, including documentation that supports practice and accountability.
Legislation establishes duties and limits
Compliance is a floor rather than a goal
Documentation supports both practice and accountability
Topic 4
Exposure assessment and controls
Recognizing a hazard is only the first step; the next is judging how much exposure occurs and what control is appropriate. The book covers monitoring and assessment alongside the hierarchy of controls, from elimination and substitution through engineering and administrative measures to protective equipment. The ordering matters because it directs attention to controls that protect everyone rather than relying on individual behavior alone.
Measure exposure before selecting controls
The hierarchy starts with elimination and substitution
Engineering controls protect everyone, not just one worker
Topic 5
Programs, training and communication
Technical controls fail when no one maintains them, so the text turns to management. Program planning sets objectives, assigns responsibility and establishes review. Training is treated as more than delivery of information: it must fit the task, the audience and the level of risk. Communication connects safety decisions to the people who carry them out and gives workers a route to report problems before they become incidents.
Planning assigns responsibility and review
Training must fit task and audience
Reporting routes surface problems early
Topic 6
Incident investigation and root cause
Investigation is presented as a learning process rather than a search for someone to blame. The book follows the collection of evidence, reconstruction of events and analysis of contributing causes, including organizational factors that allowed an unsafe condition to persist. Corrective actions are judged by whether they address the cause rather than the symptom, and by whether anyone verifies that they worked.
Investigation aims at learning, not blame
Organizational factors often sustain unsafe conditions
Corrective actions need later verification
Topic 7
Fire, emergency and industrial hygiene
The scope extends past accidental injury. Industrial hygiene addresses exposure to agents that harm gradually, fire prevention deals with ignition, fuel and building design, and emergency planning prepares an organization to respond when prevention fails. Together these chapters position safety as continuous risk management, covering events that unfold slowly as well as those that happen in a moment.
Industrial hygiene addresses gradual harm
Fire prevention combines ignition, fuel and design
Emergency planning assumes prevention can fail
Topic 8
Topic map
Physical HazardsTopic 1
Chemical and Biological HazardsTopic 2
Ergonomic HazardsTopic 3
Legislation and Professional ResponsibilityTopic 4
Exposure Assessment and ControlsTopic 5
Safety Program Planning and TrainingTopic 6
Accident InvestigationTopic 7
Fire Prevention and Emergency PreparednessTopic 8
Key takeaways
Move from hazard recognition to a measured exposure estimate before choosing which control to apply.
Favor controls that protect every worker over those that depend on individual compliance.
Judge corrective actions by whether they remove the cause and are later verified.
Occupational safety students, new safety officers and managers with safety responsibilities who need an organized introduction to hazard control, program management and incident response at work.
Topics covered
occupational safety
workplace hazard control
industrial hygiene
accident investigation
safety program management
ergonomic hazards
emergency preparedness
fire prevention
Questions about this ebook.
Edition, audience, and study-guide details at a glance.
What is Fundamentals of Occupational Safety and Health, 8th Edition about?
Fundamentals of Occupational Safety and Health, Eighth Edition, introduces workplace hazard control and safety program management for students and practitioners. Mark A. Friend and James P. Kohn connect legislation and professional responsibilities with industrial hygiene, ergonomics, accident investigation, fire prevention, emergency planning, and employee safety education.
Which edition of Fundamentals of Occupational Safety and Health, 8th Edition is this?
This listing is for the 8th edition. Check the title, ISBN, and book details above before ordering, especially if your course or reading list names a specific edition.
Who is Fundamentals of Occupational Safety and Health, 8th Edition for?
Occupational safety students, new safety officers and managers with safety responsibilities who need an organized introduction to hazard control, program management and incident response at work.
Does this page include a study guide?
Yes. This page includes an original study guide with six thematic sections, key takeaways, and a topic map for structured reading.
