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PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE
NICOLE GREESON, MS, CIH, is associate director of the occupational and environmental safety office at Duke University and Health System. Send feedback to The Synergist.
A Refresh for OEHS
BY NICOLE GREESON, AIHA PRESIDENT
A few years ago, AIHA adopted four initiatives to advance the science and practice of occupational and environmental health and safety. These initiatives have sparked a great deal of activity across AIHA, involving many staff members and a small army of volunteers. This article provides an update on the progress of each initiative.
DEFINING THE SCIENCE DtS is a collaboration between AIHA and ACGIH to develop a national OEHS research agenda. Members have submitted many potential research topics, including the recent submission on the use of 3D printing in construction, the absorption of long-term lead fume deposits on laboratory flooring tiles, and exposure assessment methods for bone conduction headphones. We’ve held two brainstorming sessions, one on area and personal sensors, and another on dermal and surface sampling. An initial agenda was released in January 2023, and a second iteration was expected to be published as this article was going to press.
On the AIHA website, you can submit research ideas, provide comments on previously submitted ideas, and suggest organizations that may have interest in helping with specific research projects.
IMPROVING EXPOSURE JUDGMENTS IEJ provides free access to the resources needed to improve the accuracy of our exposure judgments, which research has shown to be often wrong and biased low, underestimating exposure and putting workers at risk. But overly conservative judgments are also problematic, leading to unnecessary expenditure on controls and depleting resources that could be used to address greater threats to worker health.
One measure of progress with IEJ is the number of practitioners earning the Registered Specialist: Exposure Decision Analysis credential, which distinguishes OEHS professionals who have acquired the skills and knowledge to effectively manage workplace exposure and monitoring data. From 2019 through 2021, just nine people passed the EDA exam. Since the launch of IEJ in 2022, 428 people have earned the credential, many aided by AIHA’s free online course, Making Accurate Exposure Risk Decisions.
For more information, visit the IEJ webpage. You can learn about the Exposure Decision Analysis Registry and access free risk assessment tools.
Since 2022, 428 people have earned the Registered Specialist: Exposure Decision Analysis credential.
PRINCIPLES OF GOOD PRACTICE
The purpose of the PGP initiative is to document OEHS professional practices that reliably and effectively protect workers and communities from unacceptable risks. AIHA intends to publish PGP documents for each OEHS domain. Our first PGP document, published in 2023, provided a set of program and performance targets related to occupational exposure assessment. These targets were updated with the second version of the OEA PGP released in December 2024. This latest release includes guidance on hearing conservation and respiratory protection. Progress is being made on other rubrics like indoor environmental quality and thermal stress. For more information, visit the PGP webpage.
STATE OF THE ART VERSUS PRACTICE Once PGP are defined, SotAvP initiates a survey of practitioners to document current practices, establish how they differ from best practices, and identify barriers to achieving best performance. The first SotAvP survey, which was conducted in 2023, addressed airborne chemical exposure assessment and found that practitioners have widely varying criteria for unacceptable exposures, low use of statistical tools for improving exposure judgments, and high variability in their selection and use of occupational exposure limits. Additionally, only about half of survey respondents use a systematic process for advancing up the hierarchy of controls.
A second SotAvP survey, on noise and hearing loss prevention and respiratory protection, was released late last year. The AIHA Board of Directors recently approved the continuous improvement plan, which identifies actionable items to advance OEHS practice. The article beginning on page 22 in this issue goes into more detail about the continuous improvement plan. For more information about SotAvP, visit the AIHA website.
RESPONDING TO CHALLENGES These four initiatives amount to a wholesale refresh for the profession. They require a sober assessment of our strengths and weaknesses and unwavering commitment to improving worker protection. I’m excited to participate in these initiatives and eager to see how we respond to the challenges they identify.