BACKGROUND Occupational health and safety (OHS) information is often complex, diverse and unstructured and suffers from a lack of integration which usually precludes any systemic insight of the situation. AIMS To analyse to what extent the use of geographical information systems (GISs) can help to integrate, analyse and present OHS data in a comprehensive and communicable way relevant for sur...

The management of occupational health and safety (OHS) including safety culture interventions is comprised of complex problems that are often hard to scope and define. Due to the dynamic nature and complexity of OHS management, the concept of system dynamics (SD) is used to analyze accident prevention. In this paper, a system dynamics group model building (GMB) approach is used to create a caus...

1Toxicology and Molecular Biology Branch, Health Effects Laboratory Division, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), Morgantown, WV 2Pathology and Physiology Research Branch, Health Effects Laboratory Division, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), Morgantown, WV 3Biostatistics and Epidemiology Branch, Health Effects Laboratory Division, National...

Using the results of psychophysical and biomechanical experiments, NIOSH (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health) Recommended Weight Limit (RWL), the Lifting Index (LI), the form of the asymmetry multiplier, and the criterion for compression force were investigated. Analysis of the results indicated a significant difference between the NIOSH RWL and the reported Maximum Acceptabl...

To meet state and OSHA requirements for dealing with and reporting workplace violence, a growing number of hospitals, the author reports, are turning to baseline workplace violence assessments which survey employees in different roles, combined with a threat analysis and an analysis of existing controls and historical incidents that can be reviewed and tracked over time to show improvement or d...

This commentary responds to the recent critique by Weinstock and Slatin [1] of our systematic review on the effectiveness of occupational safety and health (OSH) training conducted jointly by the Institute for Work & Health (IWH) in Canada and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) in the United States [2, 3]. We address misunderstandings of our perspectives on traini...

OSHA’s permit-required confined space standard (PRCS) went into effect April 15, 1993. This standard (1910.146), arguably the second most difficult of OSHA’s standards to comprehend, second only to recordkeeping (1904), likely is the hardest with which to comply. After 18 years, most employers, including many with sound safety systems, are still not in compliance, based on the author’s experien...

As many employers know all too well, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“OSHA”) requires them to record work-related injuries and illnesses and to maintain the OSHA 300 Log for five years. Moreover, OSHA requires all employers to report to OSHA certain serious injuries within a short time period. On September 11, 2014, OSHA announced its Final Rule revising the current recordkee...