General risk factors in surf activities

In order to adequately manage risks inherent to the ocean environment proper general surf instructor training, including water safety education, is a prerequisite for any surf activity. When preparing a session regular risk assesment includes the surf and weather forecast as well as a proper venue analysis.

PSYCHOSOCIAL RISK FACTORS

Psychosocial risk is defined as: "Working conditions related to the organization of work, the content and execution of tasks and the interpersonal relationships and contexts in which work is performed, which are inadequately or deficiently materialized (by design, configuration, dimensioning and/or implementation), and which, when present, increase the probability of generating negative consequences for the safety and health of workers."

Exposure to psychosocial risk factors at work increases the probability of negative effects on the safety and physical, cognitive, emotional and social health of individuals, as well as on organizations and society as a whole. This exposure increases the probability of stress or violence in any of its manifestations, commonly known as PSYCHOSOCIAL RISKS.

Violence derived from exposure to psychosocial risk factors can manifest itself through situations of moral and psychological harassment or mobbing, sexual or gender-based harassment, discriminatory harassment or external occupational violence. It is necessary to prevent any of them due to the high impact on the safety and health of the people affected by these risks.

Psychosocial Management Process

The basic and fundamental object of psychosocial management is working conditions of a psychosocial nature. Its objective is the elimination of the risk originating from these workingconditions or, when elimination is not possible, their reduction to tolerable limits, through theevaluation, intervention and control of psychosocial risk factors.

Ideally, prevention should be integrated into the design phase, taking into account thepsychosocial design of the workstations. The organizational conditions of the jobs (timetable,time availability, amount of task to be performed, complexity of the task, communicationsystem, job recognition, clarity of functions, etc.) should be adequately designed andconceived, regardless of who occupies those jobs.

Likewise, interventions should be made on inadequate working conditions that, because they are known, do not require prior evaluations and can be directly eliminated or improved from the preventive point of view without the need to establish a psychosocial evaluation process to justify this preventive measure.

The employer must adequately design workplaces from a psychosocial point of view and ensure, with the tools of health and safety management, that this design allows the psychosocial health and safety of workers to be protected. The way to do this is through an adequate and effective identification and evaluation of psychosocial risks.

To this end, the preventive process must follow the following steps:

1. Identify the risks present in a given activity, position or organizational environment.

2. Avoidance of identified risks

3. Evaluate identified non-preventable risks

4. Controlling risks