Protecting Disaster Site, Support, and Recovery Workers

2008 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 329-332 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Celenza
Keyword(s):  
Occupational Safety ◽  
Worker Safety ◽  
Federal State ◽  
Incident Management ◽  
Health Administration ◽  
Gulf Region ◽  
Safety And Health ◽  
National Response ◽  
Response Plan ◽  
State And Local

When a disaster strikes, FEMA activates the worker safety and health provisions (annex document) of the National Response Plan (NRP). The annex describes actions needed to ensure that threats to safety and health are recognized, evaluated, and controlled consistently so that responders are properly protected during incident management operations. The activation of the Worker Safety and Health Annex gives the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) the responsibility to coordinate a comprehensive response involving federal, state, and local agencies and private-sector organizations to ensure the safety and health needs of responders are met. There is confusion, however, as to whether OSHA is acting as an advisory “coordinator” or as an enforcement agency. OSHA personnel at the WTC and the Gulf region reported they were not clear what role they must perform (and the language in the National Response Plan is not explicit). Thus, the need for a clear and comprehensive mandatory program.

scholarly journals Improving the ACGIH threshold limit value (TLV) process

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 239784731880175
Author(s):  
Carr J Smith ◽  
Thomas A Perfetti
Keyword(s):  
Occupational Safety ◽  
Threshold Limit Value ◽  
Occupational Safety And Health ◽  
Worker Safety ◽  
Health Administration ◽  
Raw Data ◽  
Limit Values ◽  
Limit Value ◽  
Threshold Limit ◽  
Safety And Health

The intent of this manuscript is to elucidate needed improvements in American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) threshold limit value (TLV) deliberations. More broadly, irreproducibility and bias adversely impact the collection, interpretation, statistical analysis, presentation, and reporting of results in many fields. In 2012, Begley and Ellis reported that scientists at Amgen had attempted to confirm published findings related to research topics of possible interest to Amgen. Fifty-three papers were deemed “landmark” studies. The authors were “shocked” when scientific findings were confirmed in only 6 (11%) cases. Many studies have confirmed that the peer-reviewed literature in biomedicine is in the midst of an irreproducibility crisis. Compounding the irreproducibility crisis is the existence of a significant bias against the publication of negative results. In the toxicology setting, negative toxicity test results are infrequently published as compared with reports that a chemical possesses a particular toxicity in a given test. Despite these deficiencies, the ACGIH states that “…the TLV®-CS Committee preferably relies on published, peer reviewed literature available in the public domain.” The primarily academic studies published in the peer-reviewed literature upon which ACGIH relies to determine TLVs rarely report raw data not already statistically transformed that are thus incalculable. In contrast, consideration of unpublished studies funded by industry, the vast majority of which are good laboratory practice-conducted contract lab studies, is only acceptable to ACGIH if the data owner provides the raw data to third parties upon request. This asymmetry in both the source of data emphasized, and inability to independently statistically analyze findings reported in the published academic literature, introduces a strong skew toward reliance on unverifiable although published measurements in the TLV process. Since Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recommends that workplaces rely on ACGIH TLVs and National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health recommended exposure limits rather than older OSHA permissible exposure limit values to optimize worker safety, ACGIH should adopt a more transparent and science-based process.

A REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS FOR OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
PRAVIN KUMAR SONKAR ◽  
SOURABH SINGH MAYANK ◽  
SUDHIR MISRA ◽  
AMARJIT SINGH
Keyword(s):  
Occupational Safety ◽  
Occupational Safety And Health ◽  
International Standards ◽  
Worker Safety ◽  
Industrial Safety ◽  
Regulatory Body ◽  
Health Administration ◽  
Fast Tracking ◽  
Safety And Health ◽  
The World

There is legitimate concern over worker safety issues across the world, as well as an international thrust to make the workplace safer. In this context, organizations such as the International Labour Organization and the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration have published several important documents that provide guidelines to ensure the maximum safety at work in different environments. Whereas, implementing these international provisions and standards in different countries could be desirable, it should be remembered that the ground realities in terms of existing national standards, local laws and customs, technology levels, and availability of implementation protocols across the world are quite different. Therefore, certain changes will need to be made before such guidelines can be adopted as part of the legal framework in any country. By undertaking a literature survey, this paper reviews some of the existing international conventions and then examines the relevant legislative applications in the Indian context, with an aim to see what would be suitable for India. It was found that the loopholes in laws and lack of regular inspections for various reasons, result in widespread ignorance of occupational safety across different stakeholders. From the study, it is recommended that setting up a national task force and central regulatory body, improvement of awareness levels, streamlining of inspections and audits and fast-tracking legal proceedings would be critical for developing and implementing improved industrial safety standards.

scholarly journals The Effect of Workplace Inspections on Worker Safety

ILR Review ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 72 (3) ◽  
pp. 718-748 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ling Li ◽  
Perry Singleton
Keyword(s):  
Occupational Safety ◽  
Worker Safety ◽  
Fuzzy Regression ◽  
Health Administration ◽  
Specific Targeting ◽  
Safety Regulations ◽  
Safety And Health ◽  
Baseline Case ◽  
The Us ◽  
Case Rate

The US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) enforces safety regulations through workplace inspections. The authors estimate the effect of inspections on worker safety by exploiting a feature of OSHA’s Site-Specific Targeting plan. The program targeted establishments for inspection if their baseline case rate exceeded a cutoff. This approach generated a discontinuous increase in inspections, which the authors exploit for identification. Using the fuzzy regression discontinuity model, they find that inspections decrease the rate of cases that involve days away from work, job restrictions, and job transfers in the calendar year immediately after the inspection cycle. They find no effect for other case rates or in subsequent years. Effects are most evident in manufacturing and less evident in health services, the largest two-digit industries represented in the data.

Evaluation of the Risk Reduction Effectiveness in OSHA’s Workplace Atmosphere Sampling Activities

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy M. Gernand
Keyword(s):  
Occupational Safety ◽  
Population Distribution ◽  
The United States ◽  
Industrial Sector ◽  
Occupational Safety And Health ◽  
Worker Safety ◽  
Health Administration ◽  
Exposure Limit ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Safety And Health

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in the United States is responsible for the promulgation and enforcement of rules to protect and enhance worker safety in most medium and large commercial enterprises. To that end, the agency has collected and processed more than 240,000 atmospheric samples of chemicals and aerosols in a variety of workplaces in the past 30 years. Though the agency spends more than $500 million per year even in the face of increasing overall employment, there exist only targeted evaluations of OSHA sampling activity for specific issues like formaldehyde or silica in the published literature. This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of this effort including assessment of the hazard potential distribution of sampled workplace atmospheres for all recorded pollutants over the time period from 1984 to 2011, the budgetary requirements of this activity over time in comparison to the assessed risk, and an evaluation of the probable effectiveness of such activity given changes in US industrial employment over that time period. The effectiveness of the sampling program is assessed according to specific criteria including the probability of detecting exceedances of the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) recommended exposure limit (REL) for individual pollutants, the trend in the overall hazard level of detected atmospheres, the coverage of industries by worker population, and the cost-efficiency of the program in identifying hazardous atmospheres. Special attention is given to lead, toluene, and various mineral- and metal-based particulate matter, which have all seen new rules implemented in the recent past. Findings show that the number of samples per employed person has decreased markedly since the beginning of the study period and become less aligned with the changes in population distribution among US regions, however the probability of detecting a hazardous level of a chemical or aerosol pollutant has increased. Extrapolations of this information and the associated changes in industrial sector employment indicate that US workplace atmospheres are marginally less hazardous at the end of the study period than they were at the beginning.

Regulatory Enforcement in a Federalist System

1986 ◽  
Vol 80 (4) ◽  
pp. 1249-1270 ◽  
Author(s):  
John T. Scholz ◽  
Feng Heng Wei
Keyword(s):  
Occupational Safety ◽  
State Level ◽  
Federal State ◽  
Health Administration ◽  
Regulatory Enforcement ◽  
Statutory Authority ◽  
Task Differences ◽  
State And Local ◽  
Task Conditions ◽  
And Task

Federal agencies integrate federal, state, and local political demands at the operational level of service delivery. They balance conflicting political demands and task requirements as they attempt to develop feasible enforcement routines capable of attracting support and resources in multiple arenas without undermining central support for budgetary resources and statutory authority. Our regression analysis of annual enforcement data from 1976 through 1983 for all 50 states indicates that even the relatively isolated enforcement procedures of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration respond significantly to state-level political and task differences. Enforcement activities responded most consistently to daily enforcement contacts with interest groups. State differences in task conditions—particularly workplace accident and unemployment rates—also elicited instrumental responses, while differences in the party and ideology of elected officials elicited more symbolic actions. State agencies, with their smaller size and greater flexibility, were even more responsive than the federal agency to political and task differences. This integrative function of bureaucracy needs further attention in democratic theory.

The Roles of Government in Protecting and Promoting Occupational and Environmental Health

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory R. Wagner ◽  
Emily A. Spieler
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Health ◽  
Environmental Protection Agency ◽  
Occupational Safety ◽  
Mine Safety ◽  
Health Administration ◽  
Safety And Health ◽  
Standards And Regulations ◽  
Regulatory Interventions ◽  
The Government ◽  
The U.S

This chapter discusses the roles of government in promoting occupational and environmental health, with a focus on the U.S. federal government. Governmental interventions, as described here, can range from non-regulatory interventions, such as dissemination of information or generation and communication of information, to establishing regulatory requirements through the promulgation and enforcement of standards and regulations. The chapter describes the U.S. laws and roles of the administrative agencies responsible for occupational and environmental health, including the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Mine Safety and Health Administration, and the Environmental Protection Agency. Noting the budgetary and political constraints on these federal agencies, the chapter goes on to discuss briefly the role of the public and the states. The government also plays a role when preventive efforts fail, and the chapter provides a brief summary of programs designed to provide compensation to injured workers.

scholarly journals Thermal Condition and Air Quality Investigation in Commercial Airliner Cabins

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (13) ◽  
pp. 7047
Author(s):  
Nu Yu ◽  
Yao Zhang ◽  
Mengya Zhang ◽  
Haifeng Li
Keyword(s):  
Air Quality ◽  
Occupational Safety ◽  
Thermal Environment ◽  
Thermal Conditions ◽  
Pressure Change ◽  
Health Administration ◽  
Exposure Limit ◽  
Safety And Health ◽  
The Us ◽  
Carbon Dioxide Co2

Cabin air quality and thermal conditions have a direct impact on passenger and flight crew’s health and comfort. In this study, in-cabin thermal environment and particulate matter (PM) exposures were investigated in four China domestic flights. The mean and standard deviation of the in-cabin carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations in two tested flights are 1440 ± 111 ppm. The measured maximum in-cabin carbon monoxide (CO) concentration is 1.2 ppm, which is under the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) permissible exposure limit of 10 ppm. The tested relative humidity ranges from 13.8% to 67.0% with an average of 31.7%. The cabin pressure change rates at the end of the climbing stages and the beginning of the descending stages are close to 10 hPa·min−1, which might induce the uncomfortable feeling of passengers and crew members. PM mass concentrations were measured on four flights. The results show that PM concentrations decreased after the aircraft cabin door closed and were affected by severe turbulences. The highest in-cabin PM concentrations were observed in the oldest aircraft with an age of 13.2 years, and the waiting phase in this aircraft generated the highest exposures.

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