When Reading a Chemical Label, What Two Kinds of Hazards Should You Check For?

The answer

When you read a chemical label under OSHA's Hazard Communication Standard (HazCom), you should check for the two kinds of hazards the label is required to communicate:

1. Health hazards — the ways a chemical can harm the body. Examples include acute toxicity, carcinogenicity, skin corrosion, eye damage, respiratory sensitization, and reproductive toxicity.
2. Physical hazards (sometimes called safety hazards) — the ways a chemical can cause a physical event. Examples include flammability, explosiveness, reactivity, oxidizing potential, and gases under pressure.

These two categories come straight from the Globally Harmonized System (GHS), which OSHA adopted into its labeling rules. A chemical can present one type, the other, or both, so a complete reading always considers each.

Why the other options are wrong

Distractors on this question usually swap in labels that are real parts of a chemical label but are not the two hazard classes:

• "Signal words and pictograms" — these are label elements that communicate hazards, not the hazard categories themselves. "Danger" and "Warning" tell you severity; pictograms illustrate the hazard, but they are how the hazard is shown, not the two kinds of hazard.
• "Health and environmental hazards" — GHS does include an environmental hazard group, but OSHA's HazCom Standard focuses on health and physical hazards for worker protection. On an OSHA-based quiz, the intended pair is health and physical.
• "Chemical and biological hazards" — biological hazards (like bloodborne pathogens) fall under a different OSHA standard, not chemical labeling.
• "Flammability and toxicity" — these are single examples, one physical and one health, not the two broad classifications.

The correct pairing is the two umbrella categories: health and physical.

The bigger picture

GHS labels standardize six required elements so any worker can read any container the same way: the product identifier, signal word ("Danger" for more severe, "Warning" for less severe), hazard statements, pictograms, precautionary statements, and supplier information. The pictograms are a fast visual key — a flame means flammable (physical hazard), a skull-and-crossbones means acute toxicity (health hazard), the health-hazard silhouette means longer-term effects like carcinogenicity.

Understanding the two hazard classes helps you choose the right protection. If a label flags a health hazard, you focus on exposure controls: gloves, respirators, ventilation, and knowing first-aid steps. If it flags a physical hazard, you focus on the environment: keeping the chemical away from ignition sources, storing it properly, and preventing dangerous reactions.

The label is only the quick reference. For the full detail behind those two hazard types, the matching Safety Data Sheet (SDS) breaks everything down across its 16 sections. Reading the label for health and physical hazards first, then consulting the SDS, is the workflow HazCom is built around.