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January 18, 2023The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) is launching a challenge aimed at fit testing evaluation for respirators.
Fit testing is required by OSHA yearly and whenever employees use a new respirator. However, not every employer may be able to meet these requirements. According to a NIOSH news release, resources to do fit testing may be a concern for “small or disadvantaged workplaces.”
In partnership with Capital Consulting Corporation and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NIOSH announced the Respirator Fit Evaluation Challenge on January 10. The challenge seeks “novel ideas” that could positively influence fit-testing practices for respirators.
“Fit testing is vital to ensure a respirator wearer is receiving the expected level of protection and is wearing a correctly fitting model and size,” said Maryann D’Alessandro, -
January 18, 2023After losing some momentum under the Trump administration and making its share of mistakes throughout the pandemic, OSHA has spent much of 2022 flexing its regulatory muscles.
Consider that, so far in 2022, it has started emphasis programs and enforcement efforts targeting warehouses, heat illness, COVID-19 and trenching violations.
At the same time, it has broadened the scope of its Severe Violator Enforcement Program and it is once again using the General Duty Clause to address ergonomics violations.
Speaking of ergonomics, the agency, along with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, is focusing on those violations as part of a broader investigation into multiple warehouse facilities owned and operated by Amazon.
Further, OSHA’s inspector roster grew 19% in fiscal year 2022. The agency added 50 new inspectors -
January 18, 2023An EHS Today Special Report
As we near the end of 2022, it’s a fair question to ask: Did anything really change over the past year?
While COVID cases have dropped off considerably over the past year, we’re still in a pandemic, and there’s no clear sign that the World Health Organization (WHO)—which officially declared the pandemic back in March 2020—plans to call it off any time soon.
The predicted “red wave” from the midterm elections turned out to be a mirage, and it sounds like we’re in for two years of solid political gridlock.
And far too many workers are still getting injured and killed on the job and on the highways from safety violations of the industrial kind (e.g., falls from heights, explosions and electrocutions) as well as the psychological kind (e.g., active shooting and suicides).
Rather than sugarcoating the bad -
January 10, 2023UAE authorities have warned companies they face severe penalties if they fail to provide a safe working environment for employees.
In a social media post, the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation told employers to ensure they follow health and safety rules. These include:
- Ensure working areas are not used to store material, equipment or rubbish and that sufficient space around machinery is provided to allow workers to move freely and avoid injury
- Take necessary precautions to protect workers from falling objects
- Fill potholes and drain stagnant water on the premises
- Provide fire-resistant equipment
- Mark entrances and emergency exits
Under Article 342 of UAE law, employers can face up to five years in prison and be fined if found guilty of causing injury or -
January 10, 2023Every winter, no matter what the industry is or how the work conditions are, slips, trips and falls consistently remains the top cause of workplace injuries and accidents.
These are injuries and accidents that not only impact the team member’s physical and emotional health but require valuable time off and may even involve costly litigation and fines.
It is imperative that the employer has protocols and measures in place to react to dangerous falls promptly and efficiently so that the severity of injuries is as low as possible. While such reactive safety measures are important to any successful safety program, proactive safety measures are even more integral, helping prevent incidents, like slips and falls, from occurring entirely. One of the most impactful, proactive OHS steps an employer can take is to regularly and thoroughly train their people in -
January 10, 2023Keeping an eye out for hazards that could lead to a blow to the head – and safeguarding against them – is vital in the workplace.
It’s also required: OSHA has standards focused on head protection: OSHA 1910.135(a) and 1926.100(a).
“It’s an absolute must in most hazardous environments,” said David Consider, senior workplace safety consultant at the National Safety Council, “the infamous ones being construction and mining.”
Deaths linked to traumatic brain injury more commonly occur in construction – NIOSH data shows that a quarter of all fatalities in the industry from 2003 to 2010 were the result of a TBI. But the risk for head injuries also is present in numerous other occupational sectors.
So, how can safety pros help protect workers?
Types of protection
“You can see some head injuries, -
January 10, 2023
Issue
New HSE research has revealed that respirators/masks which rely on ear loops (including those provided with clips, ‘snuggers’ or other means of tightening the fit of the mask) to hold the respirator/mask in place, do not protect people adequately when used as tight fitting respiratory protective equipment (RPE).
Outline of the problem
HSE has seen an increase in the variety of ear loop respirators/masks, which indicate they offer the protection provided by FFP2 (filtering facepiece respirators or disposable half mask respirators). These products rely on having a good seal with the wearer’s face. For the majority of workers who are required to wear tight fitting RPE in the workplace, this seal cannot be achieved with a respirator/mask relying on ear loops to hold it in place.
HSE
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January 05, 2023Statistics show how prevalent injuries are among industrial and frontline workers—and how wearables can ease the burden on both workers and employees.
Frontline and industrial workers comprise 80% of the global workforce. They’re delivery drivers, healthcare providers, housekeepers, manufacturing line workers, warehouse packers, grocery stockers, restaurant servers and more.
While these 2.7 billion workers span multiple industries, one common concern they all share is safety. Industrial and frontline employees perform tasks that are often labor-intensive and can, in and of themselves, be hazardous. In fact, nearly 1 million workplace injuries occur each day in the world.
This high number of injuries suggests that safety among this critical workforce is in crisis. Many companies only invest in minimal safety personnel, equipment or training, -
January 05, 2023Trench-related deaths were on the rise in the first six months of 2022. Twenty-two workers died from trenching and excavation-related incidents in this time frame. In 2021, only 15 workers died the entire year.
From 2003 to 2017, 373 workers lost their lives to trench-related incidents, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).
Working in a trench presents many hazards for workers, including trench collapses. NIOSH sums up the dangers of trench collapses in two simple sentences: “A small amount of dirt may not seem dangerous, but one square yard can weigh more than 3,000 pounds—the weight of a compact car. This small amount of dirt is enough to fatally crush and suffocate workers.”
How can employers keep workers safe from these collapses? OSHA provides these recommendations.
- Workers
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January 05, 2023Silver Spring, MD — As the use of drone technology in the construction industry expands, so too do safety concerns related to worker distraction and potential collisions while operating at height.
That’s the conclusion of researchers from CPWR – The Center for Construction Research and Training, who in a recent study analyzed the behaviors of 153 participants “with varying construction experience” in a virtual construction site.
Findings show that working with or near drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles, “reduces the attention workers devote to the task at hand, which could result in falls when they are at height.” Workers operating while drones were 12 and 25 feet away looked away from job tasks more frequently than when drones were 1.5 and 4 feet away.
Additionally, working with drones at any distance contributes to “significant” psychological
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