Christine M. Branche

Occupational safety and health, green chemistry, and sustainability: a review of areas of convergence

With increasing numbers and quantities of chemicals in commerce and use, scientific attention continues to focus on the environmental and public health consequences of chemical production processes and exposures. Concerns about environmental stewardship have been gaining broader traction through emphases on sustainability and “green chemistry” principles. Occupational safety and health has not been fully promoted as a component of environmental sustainability. However, there is a natural convergence of green chemistry/sustainability and occupational safety and health efforts. Addressing both together can have a synergistic effect. Failure to promote this convergence could lead to increasing worker hazards and lack of support for sustainability efforts. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health has made a concerted effort involving multiple stakeholders to anticipate and identify potential hazards associated with sustainable practices and green jobs for workers. Examples of potential hazards are presented in case studies with suggested solutions such as implementing the hierarchy of controls and prevention through design principles in green chemistry and green building practices. Practical considerations and strategies for green chemistry, and environmental stewardship could benefit from the incorporation of occupational safety and health concepts which in turn protect affected workers.

A national safety stand-down to reduce construction worker falls

INTRODUCTION Falls are the leading cause of death and third leading cause of non-fatal injuries in construction. In an effort to combat these numbers, The National Campaign to Prevent Falls in Construction began in April 2012. As the campaign gained momentum, a week called the National Safety Stand-Down to Prevent Falls was launched to draw attention to the campaign and its goals. The purpose of this paper is to examine the reach of the Stand-Down and lessons learned from its implementation. METHODS The Occupational Safety & Health Administration offered a certificate of participation during the Stand-Down. To print the certificate, respondents provided information about their company and stand-down event. CPWR - The Center for Construction Research and Training conducted analyses on the data collected to assess reach and extent of participation. RESULTS In 2014, 4,882 stand-downs were reported. The total number reported in 2015 was 3,759. The number of participants, however, increased from 770,193 in 2014 to 1,041,307 in 2015. DISCUSSION The Stand-Down successfully reached the construction industry and beyond. Respondents were enthusiastic and participated nationally and internationally in variety of activities. They also provided significant feedback that will be influential in future campaign planning. CONCLUSION Numbers of Stand-Downs and participants for both years are estimated to be substantially higher than the data recorded from the certificate database. While we cannot determine impact, the reach of the Stand-Down has surpassed expectations. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS The data gathered provide support for the continuation of the Stand-Down. Campaign planners incorporated findings into future Stand-Down planning, materials creation, and promotion. This analysis also provides insight on how organizations can partner to create targeted national campaigns that include activities stakeholders in the construction industry respond to, and can be used to replicate our efforts for other safety and health initiatives in construction and other industries.

Unmanned aerial vehicles in construction and worker safety

Applications of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for military, recreational, public, and commercial uses have expanded significantly in recent years. In the construction industry, UAVs are used primarily for monitoring of construction workflow and job site logistics, inspecting construction sites to assess structural integrity, and for maintenance assessments. As is the case with other emerging technologies, occupational safety assessments of UAVs lag behind technological advancements. UAVs may create new workplace hazards that need to be evaluated and managed to ensure their safe operation around human workers. At the same time, UAVs can perform dangerous tasks, thereby improving workplace safety. This paper describes the four major uses of UAVs, including their use in construction, the potential risks of their use to workers, approaches for risk mitigation, and the important role that safety and health professionals can play in ensuring safe approaches to the their use in the workplace.

Definition of Drowning: A Progress Report

In 2006, a new definition of drowning was introduced, with the aim of establishing a standard to be used worldwide and to serve epidemiological purposes. To arrive at the definition, a discussion paper was used to prompt comment electronically, followed by consensus procedures among drowning experts worldwide. These procedures led to the adoption of the following definition during the World Congress on Drowning in June 2002: Drowning is the process of experiencing respiratory impairment from submersion/immersion in liquid.

Twenty years of NIOSH construction research

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Construction Research Program at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). The Program started in 1990 through a

The new ANSI nail gun standard: A lost opportunity for safety

1 million appropriation and a Congressional mandate to “develop a comprehensive prevention program directed at health problems affecting construction workers by expanding existing NIOSH activities in areas of surveillance, research, and intervention.” The United States Congress provided additional direction and funding over the next five years, adding new focus areas such as traumatic injury, musculoskeletal disorders, surveillance, and intervention research. Support was provided for a cooperative agreement for an external National Construction Center with the aim to develop prevention-oriented strategies and programs, to provide linkages to the construction community, and to coordinate applied research. Before 1990, construction safety and health was a relatively obscure topic with few researchers specializing in this area of research. Information describing safety and health conditions in the industry was difficult to find. The fatality rate for the U.S. construction industry as a whole was estimated to be 25 per 100,000 full time equivalent (FTE) employees, the fatality rate for structural iron workers in 1992 was 143.3 deaths per 100,000 FTE, and the rate for electric power line installers was 149.3 deaths per 100,000 FTE. Yet, there were few regular conferences for both researchers and construction industry practitioners to share problems and solutions. When the NIOSH Construction Program was started, most decisions in safety and health were based on anecdotal information, occasionally using fatality data. Therewas, for instance, little awareness about non-fatal, but potentially disabling, conditions likemusculoskeletal disorders or even of ergonomic interventions that would prevent these troubling conditions. Apart from confined space entry risks and hazardous waste operations, including asbestos management, there was no significant awareness of health hazards. That has changed substantially by characterizing outcomes using new data such as non-fatal injury and illness surveys, workers compensation claims, and health care utilization. Today there is a much more balanced, evidence-based perspective on the occupational safety and health needs of the construction industry. There is a rapidly expanding body of applied research that is steadily improving in scientific quality and in ease of practical application. The collaboration between NIOSH and the National Construction Center is a model of public-private partnership in the industry. The collaboration has created a strong foundation for construction partnerships, especially as the program is poised to workwith industry partners to move research to practice (r2p) in the coming years. In 2007, NIOSH commissioned a review of its Construction Research Program by a Committee of the National Academies of Science. The Committee determined that the Program has a good balance among: (a) the NIOSH intramural research, (b) the National Construction Center, and (c) investigator-initiated extramural projects. The Committee reviewed the Program for relevance and impact, using a scale of 1-5 (with 5 being the best). The Committee assigned the Program a score of 5 for relevance and 4 for impact. No other NIOSH program evaluated by the National Academies of Science has received higher scores.

Future Research Questions

Pneumatic nail guns have been shown in published studies to cause injury and death to both workers and consumers, but those equipped with sequential trigger mechanisms provide much greater safety protection against unintentional discharge than those equipped with contact triggers. In 2015 the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) approved a revision to its 2002 nail gun standard, but failed to require sequential triggers. Substantive and procedural deficiencies in the ANSI standards development process resulted in a scientifically unsound nail gun safety standard, detracting from its use as the basis for a mandatory national safety standard and ultimately from its ability to protect worker and consumer users. Am. J. Ind. Med. 60:147-151, 2017.

Summary and Recommendations

The magnitude of drowning is better understood in several regions of the world and improvements in data collection have been observed. However, several barriers in data collection remain. Not all countries use the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision (ICD-10) coding for drowning injury, and of those that do, not all report drowning to the 4th digit, thus making for large differences in the level of specification for drowning. Moreover, populations at greatest risk are often omitted from standard data collection methods in many countries. These challenges make it difficult to make international comparisons, which then make it difficult to have a full picture of the drowning burden globally. Lifesaving organizations can play a role here, especially if uniformity in data collection among them can be accomplished. The still new definition of drowning has made it possible to measure the magnitude of the drowning problem globally as never before. Adoption of the definition of drowning has continued at an encouraging pace since 2006. As in 2006, researchers are invited and encouraged strongly to use the new definition and to report the advantages and disadvantages they observe in scientific journal articles and editorials. Furthermore, including the definition of drowning in the ICD coding would be an ideal way to accomplish consistency in data collection, which should, in turn, affect treatment modalities and prevention strategies for drowning globally. Therefore, exploring the inclusion of our definition in ICD is a key priority.

Brain Resuscitation in the Drowning Victim

Drowning is a major cause of death, disability, and lost quality of life and is a leading cause of death among children globally. Yet, drowning is an often neglected and preventable public health problem. Over the last decade, the global profile of drowning has improved. Data on fatal drowning is easier to obtain due in large part to efforts by the World Health Organization (WHO). About 388,000 people fatally drowned globally, resulting in over ten million disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) lost. Approximately 7 % of the 5.8 million injury-related deaths globally were attributed to drowning; of these, 97 % occurred in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Based on the same data, children ages 1–4 years appear to be at highest risk.