Safety eyewear may help protect vision

June 28, 2010

Every day there are over 1,000 eye injuries that occur on the job in American workplaces, with 90 percent of them being preventable if proper safety eyewear was worn, MfrTech.com reports.

Workers are encouraged to seek out safety glasses that are comfortable and that suit their particular job. Recent surveys have found that individuals cite discomfort as a main reason for not wearing safety glasses.

"Protective eyewear could help prevent as many as a million workplace eye injuries a year," Jodi Groh, director of marketing for safety eyeglass products, told the news source. "Fogging is one of the reasons people don’t wear their protective eyewear."

The news source also reports that small particles of wood, dust, metal and cement are the most common sources of eye injuries, and they may cause long-term vision problems.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently found that three out of five workers were not wearing eye protection at the time of their accidents.

Experts recommend even minor eye injuries be treated as soon as possible because they may develop into something more serious over time.