Retrospective view on Occupational Health Or Digital Health Omissions!?
Nigel Dupree
Project Director at S.M.A.R.T. Foundation - also known as: Legin Nyleve, LeginNyleve and @l3gin on other Social Media
By 2007 the Health And Safety Executive had identified the occupational health "visual ergonomics risks" of over-exposure to standard, out of the box, display screen equipment something already known by 1990 but, without a suitable Visual Risk Assessment or mitigative intervention at that time screen ergonomics were excluded from the 1993 UK DSE Regulations regardless of the label DSE on the tin as it were.
Nevertheless by 2016 the WHO International Classification of Diseases 10th revision had recognised the Global visual hazards and risk of eye-strain and used an older generic heading of Asthenopia to cover the range of stress related natural "visual adaptations" presenting in the population, like progressive myopia and binocular vision suppression.
In the meantime eye-strain and vision stress prevalent in DSE user operators had been called "Screen Fatigue" and later "Computer Vision Syndrome" linking the chain of causation to over-exposure to a specific stressor and/or 21st Digital Century DSE Product Safety.
So far, from 2018 Accessibility Regulations have only covered minimal "Colour Contrast Validation" addressing any stress / "Contrast Sensitivity" triggered on websites (WCAG 2.1) although ISO 30071-1) does apply to International Standards for Accessibility of Systems with 2010 Equality Act Section '20' "Reasonable Adjustments and/or Accommodations" right to modify standard Display Screen equipment ergonomic settings to prevent and/or mitigate repetitive stress injuries.
In 1998 there was the PUWER Act (Provision & Use of Work Equipment Regulations) for the prevention of sub-optimal operator ergonomics resulting in repetitive stress injuries to operators but, at the time this mainly applied to engineering, vehicles and construction equipment.
Anyway, the Health & Safety Profession now seams to be more concerned with "H&S Future Horizons", sort of expediently ignoring, preexisting retrospective occupational health hazards and risk accepting there is a movement promoting Neurological and Mental Health even if there is a long way to go before achieving any genuine 'tipping-point' between Health & Safety.
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To date, Accessibility and the importance of "Contrast" whether related to hard copy, websites, digital documents or Display Screens regardless of legislation or regulation has yet to gain any significant traction maybe because perceived to affect or apply to the, so called, Disabled with a diagnosis of one kind or another nonetheless, they remain just the tip of the iceberg of those either in denial or fear of stigma of being found wanting in some way by their family, peers or employers.
Literacy and particularly "Digital Literacy" in the 21st Century is already an essential skill apart from increased risk of vision-loss now starting from the cradle and exacerbating earlier onset of age related vision-loss and debilitating blindness simply due to over-exposure to sub-optimally Colour Contrast Calibrated display screen equipment.