Who does it affect?
Occupational skin disease affects workers in a wide variety of industries. Those at highest risk include:

• Health care workers
• Metal workers
• Machine operators
• Food handlers
• Hairdressers
• Motor mechanics
• Concreters/bricklayers
• Printers
• Florists/nursery assistants
• Dentists/dental assistants
• Forestry workers

Most common causes of work related occupational skin diseases:

• Detergents and soap
• Water and wet work
• Solvents
• Cutting oils
• Heat and sweating
• Dusts and fibres
• Acids and alkalis
• Oxidising agents/reducing agents
• Paper towels and paper products
• Cement, both wet and dry

Most common occupational allergens

• Thiurams (rubber products)
• Chromate (cement and leather tanning)
• Epoxy resin (surface coatings and glue)
• Para-phenylenediamine (hair dye)
• Ammonium persulfate (hair bleech)
• Nickel (jewellery, some metal objects, electroplating)
• Glyceryl monothioglycolate (perming solution)
• Fragrance (used in many products)
• Formalin (clothing, preservatives, cooling fluids)
• Coconut diethanolamide (detergent used in shampoos, liquid soaps, cutting oils)
• Colophonium/colophony/rosin (glue, tape, wood, cosmetics)
• Mercaptobenzothiazole (rubber products)
• Cobalt (jewellery)
• Diazolidinylurea (found in creams, lotions, shampoos)
• Hyroxyethyl methacrylate (glues)

If your employer has failed in their duty of care, then you may be entitled to compensation. If you suffer from an occupational skin disease which is the result of your employer failing to take adequate care to protect you from such injury, then we can help you to get the compensation you deserve.

Prevention

• Always wash, using a skin cleanser, after working with substances which can cause dermatitis. 
• Use cream to help prevent any moisture loss from the skin.  Barrier creams can do more harm than good, as they can sometimes aggravate the condition. 
• Examine your skin regularly.
• Gloves may help but latex is also an irritant in its own right.
• Avoid contact with the substance – easier said than done, but your employer is obliged to help. 
• Guard against broken skin - the substance can get in more easily and more deeply into the skin and cause more harm.  Avoid all contact between the skin and the substance. 
• Take a shower instead of a bath.
• Pat the skin dry rather than rubbing.
• Avoid perfumed soaps and other cosmetics