Occupational safety and health professionals

E. W. Finucane, Definitions, Conversions, and Calculations for Occupational Safety and Health Professionals, Global, Denver, Colo., 1994. 

Industrial or occupational safety and health professionals have been involved for some time now in the analysis of tasks that must be performed in the workplace and the human interface that must occur in order to accomplish a given task. In actuality, the modern methods of task analysis and job analysis were initially developed as a result of the somewhat historic time and motion studies conducted in the early twentieth cenmry. These techniques were later enhanced further during the U.S. Department of Labor s efforts in occupational analysis conducted in 1930. These... 

It cannot be overemphasized that the principal elements of a sound industrial safety program, with its primary purpose of OSHA compliance, work hazard reduction, assurance of employee/job safety and health, and the evaluation of jobs or tasks (through the ISA or another comparable method), can, in most cases, be achieved through application of the system safety process. The connection between the two programs, while not entirely obvious, is quite understandable, as described above. Perhaps the most important thing to remember here is that the industrial or occupational safety and health professional can utilize the time-proven techniques of hazard reduction and system safety analysis to accomplish the desired goal of both programs ... 

Industrial or occupational safety and health professionals have been involved for some time now in the analysis of tasks which must be performed in the workplace... 

Employers expect to hire over 25,000 occupational safety and health professionals over the next 5 years. 

Measurements that assess the extent of exposure can be important tools in a laboratory safety program. Air sampling has long served as an aid to occupational safety and health professionals who seek to ensiue that chemical exposures are minimized. As biomonitoring continues with improved methods and builds a substantial mass of data to aid in interpretation, it will become a very significant technique for assessing exposure to chemicals. The utility of these techniques is illustrated in Special Topic 6.3.1.1. 

The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (OSH Act) created two new federal agencies the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) within the U.S. Department of Labor and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The role of OSHA was to promulgate and enforce national workplace standards designed to protect the safety and health of the American worker, while the role of NIOSH was to sponsor research, train occupational safety and health professionals and recommend criteria for workplace standards to OSHA. 

Individuals with specialized competencies such as those provided by a registered professional engineer, a specialized occupational safety and health professional or an industrial hygienist. 

As record numbers of National Guardsmen and Reservists return to the civilian workforce from active military duty — in many cases, from duty in a combat zone — they and their employers face challenges that occupational safety and health professionals are uniquely positioned and skilled to address, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). 

To respond to growing concern and debate over the supply and demand for occupational safety and health professionals in the United States, NIOSH commissioned a National Survey of the Occupational Safety and Health Workforce, released in October, 2011. The surveys were designed and implemented by an independent research firm with expertise in survey research design. The effort was guided by a multi-disciplinary advisory task force of occupational safety and health professionals and practitioners. Pubhc comment and input from major stakeholder groups were included in the program development. 

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