Occupational Safety & Health Administration Research Articles

CO2 Pipeline risk assessment and comparison for the midcontinent United States

A comprehensive quantitative risk assessment for the construction and operation of CO2 transportation networks considered for the Midcontinent United States was conducted. The results showed risks associated with CO2 pipelines were significantly less than those of other pipeline types. The assessment used four conceptual pipelines of different lengths to discuss risks operators may see. The assessment evaluated the risk associated with construction and operation using data from the US Occupational Safety Health Administration to determine the risk of injury or death for pipeline workers and data from the US Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration for CO2, natural gas distribution, natural gas transmission/gathering, and non-CO2 hazardous liquid pipelines to develop quantitative likelihood and severity values leading to risk values. The data for the assessment covered incidents from 2010 to 2017 for CO2 pipelines. The average risk for construction and 30 years of operation for four CO2 pipeline configurations ranging between 79 and 1,546 miles in length was found. The construction and operational risk averaged between $1,400,521 (approximately $0.02/tonne of CO2) for the shorter pipeline (79 miles) and $27,481,939 (approximately $0.10/tonne of CO2) for a longer pipeline (1,546 miles). The largest risks of fatality for CO2 pipelines comes from vehicle transport. The largest operational risk to the pipeline was due to leakage. Public pipeline opposition is also a significant risk; it was not quantified but is addressed.

Factors contributing to US chemical plant process safety incidents from 2010 to 2020

Process safety incidents can result in injuries, fatalities, environmental impacts, facility damage, downtime & lost production, as well as impacts on a company's and industry's reputation. This study is focused on an analysis of the most commonly reported contributing factors to process safety incidents in the US chemical manufacturing industry. The database for the study contained 79 incidents from 2010 to 2019, partly investigated by the Chemical Safety Board (CSB). To be included in the study, the CSB archive of incident investigations were parsed to include only incidents which occurred at a company classified as 325 in the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), assigned to businesses that participate in chemical manufacturing. For each incident, all of the identified contributing factors were catalogued in the database. From this list of identified contributing factors, it was possible to name the ‘top three’ contributing factors. The top three contributing factors cited for the chemical manufacturing industry were found to be: design; preventive maintenance; and safeguards, controls & layers of protection. The relationship between these top contributing factors and the most common OSHA citations was investigated as well. The investigation and citation history for NAICS 325 companies in the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) citations database was then analysed to assess whether there was any overlap between the top reported contributing factors to process safety events and the top OSHA citations recorded for the industry. A database consisting of the inspection and citation history for the chemical manufacturing industry identified by NAICS code 325 was assembled for inspections occurring between 2010 and 2020 (August). The analysis of the citation history for the chemical manufacturing industry specifically, identified that the list of the top contributing factors to process safety incidents overlapped with the most common OSHA violations. This finding is relevant to industry stakeholders who are considering how to strategically invest resources for achieving maximum benefit – reducing process safety risk and simultaneously improving OSHA citation history.

Image Detection Model for Construction Worker Safety Conditions using Faster R-CNN

Many accidents occur on construction sites leading to injury and death. According to the Occupational Safety Health Administration (OSHA), falls, electrocutions, being struck-by-objects and being caught in or between an object were the four main causes of worker deaths on construction sites. Many factors contribute to the increase in accidents, and personal protective equipment (PPE) is one of the defense mechanisms used to mitigate them. Thus, this paper presents an image detection model about workers’ safety conditions based on PPE compliance by using the Faster Region-based Convolutional Neural Networks (R-CNN) algorithm. This experiment was conducted using Tensorflow involving 1,129 images from the MIT Places Database (from Scene Recognition) as a training dataset, and 333 anonymous dataset images from real construction sites for evaluation purposes. The experimental results showed 276 of the images being detected as safe, and an average accuracy rate of 70%. The strength of this paper is based on the image detection of the three PPE combinations, involving hardhats, vests and boots in the case of construction workers. In future, the threshold and image sharpness (low resolution) will be two main characteristics of further refinement in order to improve the accuracy rate.

Association Between Occupational Exposure to Pesticides and Cardiovascular Disease Incidence: The Kuakini Honolulu Heart Program.

BackgroundPreviously, Kuakini Honolulu Heart Program researchers reported that occupational exposure to pesticides was significantly associated with total mortality. The current study examines occupational exposure to pesticides in relation to incident cardiovascular disease, defined as coronary heart disease or cerebrovascular accident.Methods and ResultsWith the Occupational Safety Health Administration exposure scale used as an estimate of exposure, statistical analyses were performed on a cohort of 7557 Japanese‐American men from the Kuakini Honolulu Heart Program. Hazard ratios for cardiovascular disease incidence were calculated for various levels of pesticide exposure using Cox proportional hazards models. In the first 10 years of follow‐up, a positive association was observed between age‐adjusted cardiovascular disease incidence and high levels of pesticide exposure (hazard ratio=1.46, 95% CI=1.10‐1.95, P=0.009). This relationship remained significant after adjustment for other cardiovascular disease risk factors (hazard ratio=1.42, 95% CI=1.05‐1.92, P=0.021). No significant association for coronary heart disease or cerebrovascular accident incidence with pesticide exposure was observed when examined separately, possibly due to a smaller number of events.ConclusionsThese findings suggest that occupational exposure to pesticides may play a role in the development of cardiovascular diseases. The results are novel, as the association between occupational exposure to pesticides and cardiovascular disease incidence has not been examined previously in this unique cohort.

Proof of concept for a passive sampler for monitoring of gaseous elemental mercury in artisanal gold mining

Mercury emissions from artisanal gold mining operations occurring in roughly 80 developing countries are a major workplace health hazard for millions of people as well as the largest contributor to global mercury pollution. There are no portable, cheap, and rapid methods able to inform workers or health practitioners of mercury exposure on site in remote locations. In this work, a proof of concept for a miniaturized mercury sampler, prepared by the direct reduction of gold into the porous nanostructures of Vycor glass (PVG), is introduced. Mercury retention on the PVG/Au sampler induces significant color changes, due to the formation of Au-Hg amalgam that affects the surface plasmon resonance characteristics of the material. The color change can potentially be quantified by the analysis of pictures obtained with a cell phone camera rapidly and onsite. Laboratory experiments showed the viability of using PVG/Au as passive sampler for monitoring of Hg°. PVG/Au samplers were then deployed in an artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) operations in Burkina Faso and it was able to indicate personal mercury exposures. The amount of mercury quantified in the samplers for all miners was higher than the current personal exposure limit set by the US Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA).

Beryllium exposure limit finalized

Allowable worker exposure to beryllium will be reduced to one-tenth of the current level, the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) announced earlier this month. Beryllium is used in multiple applications in areas such as aerospace, electronics, energy, and medicine. Industrial workers who inhale beryllium-containing dust or mist while mining or processing the metal can develop lung disease. The current permissible exposure limit for airborne beryllium dates to the 1940s, when the now-defunct Atomic Energy Commission set the limit at 2.0 µg/m3, as averaged over an eight-hour period. OSHA first proposed lowering it in 1975. The Department of Energy lowered its exposure limit for nuclear weapons workers to 0.2 µg/m3 in 1999. In 2012, the United Steelworkers union and Materion, the only U.S. beryllium materials maker, together proposed to OSHA that the agency also lower its limit to 0.2 µg/m3. Employers have one year to implement most of the new

What Should Be the Content and Frequency of Performing a Medical Evaluation to Determine Fitness to Wear a Respirator?

The aim of this study was to assess the standard of care among occupational medicine practioners for determining medical fitness to wear a respirator. A 15-item email/telephone survey was conducted of members of the Michigan Occupational and Environmental Medical Association. Sixty-seven percent of occupational medicine practioners who responded performed respirator evaluations; 75% did more than just the required Occupational Safety Health Administration questionnaire. Cardiovascular and respiratory symptoms and problems wearing a respirator (87% to 95%) were the most common reasons for additional testing and denying medical clearance (58% to 82%). Sixty percent of practioners required workers to have an annual evaluation. The frequency of medical evaluation, which specific tests were performed, and the criteria used to determine fitness to wear a respirator varied markedly between practioners. Further research is needed to determine whether the widespread variation is a sign of too little or too much testing by different practioners.

The SCOPE of Hospital Falls: A Systematic Mixed Studies Review.

This systematic mixed studies review on hospital falls is aimed to facilitate proactive decision-making for patient safety during the healthcare facility design. Falls were identified by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services as a nonreimbursed hospital-acquired condition (HAC) due to volume and cost, and additional financial penalties were introduced with the 2014 U.S. HAC reduction program. In 2015, the Joint Commission alert identified patient falls as one of the top reported sentinel events, and the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) added slips, trips, and falls as a focus for investigators' healthcare inspections. Variations in fall rates at both the hospital and the unit level are indicative of an ongoing challenge. The built environment can act as a barrier or enhancement to achieving the desired results in safety complexity that includes the organization, people, and environment. The systematic literature review used Medical Subject Heading terms and key word alternates for hospital falls with searches in MEDLINE, Web of Science, and CINAHL. The search was limited to English-language papers. Following full-text review, 27 papers were included and critically appraised using an evaluation matrix that included a mixed methods appraisal tool. Themes were coded by broad categories of factors for organization (policy/operations), people (caregivers/staff, patients), and the environment (healthcare facility design). Subcategories were developed to define the physical environment and consider the potential interventions in the context of relative stability. Conditions of hospital falls were identified and evaluated through the literature review. A theoretical model was developed to propose a human factors framework while considering the permanence of solutions.

Development of Occupational Health Measures for the National Health Security Preparedness Index.

Development of Occupational Health Measures for the National Health Security Preparedness Index.

Tougher Safety Penalties On Deck

Chemical or pharma companies and other employers that violate worker safety standards could face stiffer penalties in the future because the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) started 2016 with stronger tools to deter workplace safety violations. Employers “are far more concerned about OSHA than they were six months ago,” says Valerie Butera, an attorney who specializes in workplace safety and health at law firm Epstein Becker Green. That’s because Congress passed legislation in October 2015 that allows OSHA to increase its civil fines for the first time since 1990. In addition, an expanded joint initiative between the Department of Labor (DOL), of which OSHA is a part, and the Department of Justice (DOJ) will augment penalties by combining worker endangerment cases with charges of environmental and other offenses. These moves to strengthen worker safety are “useful and long overdue,” says Mike Wright, director of health, safety, and environment for

Teammate familiarity and risk of injury in emergency medical services

ObjectiveWe investigated the association between teammate familiarity and workplace injury in the emergency medical services (EMS) setting.MethodsFrom January 2011 to November 2013, we abstracted a mean of 29 months of...

Safety Management Status among Nurses Handling Anticancer Drugs: Nurse Awareness and Performance Following Safety Regulations.

This study identified the actual conditions for safe anticancer drug management among nurses and the relationship between level of awareness and performance of anticancer drug safety regulations in terms of preparation, administration, and disposal. The respondents were 236 nurses working with chemotherapy in wards and outpatient clinics in five hospitals in and near Seoul. Safety regulations provided for the anticancer drug the Occupational Safety Health Administration (OSHA, 1999), as modified for an earlier study, were used. The results showed that the level of awareness and performance on the anticancer drug safety regulations indicate their preparation (3.38±0.55, 2.38±0.98), administration (3.52±0.46, 3.17±0.70), general handling and disposal (3.33±0.54, 2.42±0.90) on a scale 0 to 5. Also, there were significant differences in job positions, work experience, type of preparation, and continuing education and a positive relationship between the level of awareness and nursing performance. Thus, nurses should receive continuing education on the handling of anticancer drugs to improve the level of performance following safety regulations.

Protecting the Surgical Team From Waste Anesthetic Gases During Medical Missions

aste anesthetic gases are the exhausted gases that leak into the surrounding room during Wmedical procedures. Occupational Safety Health Administration guidelines call for proper suction scavenging of waste anesthesia gases because they can cause harmful effects when inhaled by the surgical team, so these gases are generally safely disposed of in developed nations. However, waste anesthetic gases are a hazard when delivering surgical care during medical missions to developing countries.

Are You Covered? Safe Practices for the use of Personal Protective Equipment

Emergency nurses frequently encounter patients with a known or suspected infectious illness. To prevent the spread of infection and injury, emergency nurses must be well prepared to appropriately select and use personal protective equipment (PPE). Furthermore, emergency nurses must have readily available access to PPE, as well as effective and timely training, including routine fit testing for respiratory protection.1,2 According to the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA), when PPE is required, training for health care personnel must include the identification of the correct PPE; how to properly put on (don), wear, and remove (doff) equipment; limitations of PPE; and how to appropriately maintain and dispose of PPE.

The acute exposure effects of inhaled nickel nanoparticles on murine endothelial progenitor cells

Introduction: The discovery of endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) may help to explain observed cardiovascular effects associated with inhaled nickel nanoparticle exposures, such as increases in vascular inflammation, generation of reactive oxygen species, altered vasomotor tone and potentiated atherosclerosis in murine species.Methods: Following an acute whole body inhalation exposure to 500 µg/m3 of nickel nanoparticles for 5 h, bone marrow EPCs from C57BL/6 mice were isolated. EPCs were harvested for their RNA or used in a variety of assays including chemotaxis, tube formation and proliferation. Gene expression was assessed for important receptors involved in EPC mobilization and homing using RT-PCR methods. EPCs, circulating endothelial progenitor cells (CEPCs), circulating endothelial cells (CECs) and endothelial microparticles (EMPs) were quantified on a BD FACSCalibur to examine endothelial damage and repair associated with the exposure.Results and conclusions: Acute exposure to inhaled nickel nanoparticles significantly increased both bone marrow EPCs as well as their levels in circulation (CEPCs). CECs were significantly elevated indicating that endothelial damage occurred due to the exposure. There was no significant difference in EMPs between the two groups. Tube formation and chemotaxis, but not proliferation, of bone marrow EPCs was impaired in the nickel nanoparticle exposed group. These results coincided with a decrease in the mRNA of receptors involved in EPC mobilization and homing. These data provide new insight into how an acute nickel nanoparticle exposure to half of the current Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) permissible exposure limit may adversely affect EPCs and exacerbate cardiovascular disease states.

Noise exposure level of the drivers of heavy duty diesel trucks

Noise exposure is a key factor that influences the health and performance of truck drivers. This study measured the in-cab noise level status of 20 new, 2007 or 2008 model heavy-duty diesel trucks from four different manufacturers under actual driving conditions. Overall in-cab noise levels were found to be below 8-hour NIOSH (The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health) and OSHA (Occupational Safety & Health Administration) standard limit values. Results indicated slightly higher noise levels occurred while driving on the federal interstate when compared to driving on the state highway. It is believed that noise from tires, engine and wind impacting the cab at higher road speeds contributed to the elevated noise levels measured during interstate travel because speed limits are higher on the interstate than on state highways. These results could serve as baseline data from which future similar studies may determine if truck designs have changed the existing state of these conditions for truck drivers.

Investigation of Factors Contributing to Fatal and Nonfatal Roofer Fall Accidents

Roofers continue to suffer frequent fall-related injuries and fatalities. The objectives of this research were (a) identifying the factors affecting roofer fall accidents; (b) investigating the frequency distributions of these factors; (c) examining the relationships between the factors; and (d) developing a statistical model for fatal and nonfatal fall outcomes. Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) accident data was analyzed using categorical variables. After establishing data demographics, cross-tabulation analysis was performed to determine factor relationships, and logistic regression modeling was done to predict accident outcomes using degree of injury as a dependent variable and the significant factors from cross-tabulation as independent variables. It was found that roofers most frequently experienced falls while working in smaller alteration/rehabilitation projects and at heights below 20 feet. Unguarded/improperly secured platforms, walkways, openings, edges and ladders, misjudgment of hazardous situation, and improper choice of equipment/process came out to be significant contributing factors. It was observed that the odds of fatality decreased when roofers were provided OSHA-compliant fall protection systems; used these systems; and received fall protection training per OSHA requirements. The model developed and validated in this study successfully predicted the fall accident outcomes in terms of fatality and nonfatal injury.

Innovative IAQ Organic Sensor

An innovative organic sensor for the monitoring of indoor air quality is described. For office buildings and schools the main requirements are: temperature, RH %, O2 and CO2 concentrations. Moreover low O2 and high CO2 concentrations can be hazardous. There are a lot of sensors based on different principal transducers that are able to detect very low concentrations of CO2, O2, and RH%.The system is based on a resistive interdigital sensor based on an organic sensing material, anthocyanin. Anthocyanins are natural pigments widely distributed in nature: they are produced by plants as secondary metabolites responsible for the pigmentation of many flowers, fruits and vegetables. In this work authors show the possibility to use this innovative organic sensor to monitor indoor air quality by measuring O2 concentration shifts with respect to a standard of 20% (20.000ppm) and the critical CO2 concentration value of about 5% (5000ppm) which is comparable with OSHA (Occupational Safety & Health Administration) standard in an eight-hour time-weighted average (TWA).

Eyewear Contamination Levels in the Operating Room

The United States Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) lists one of the primary reasons for eye injuries and transmission of infectious material occurring is individuals not wearing eye protection. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) recommend eye protection to reduce the risk of infectious disease transmission through eye mucous membranes (conjunctiva). Appropriate products should be selected based on the anticipated level of injury, exposure, and vision needs.

Industrial Hygiene Programs Design in the Oil & Gas Company

Each of industries including oil and gas industri should pay attention to aspects of industrial hygiene as well as possible given the magnitude of the risk level of activity contained in each employee. Industrial hygiene is the study of how to anticipate, recognize, evaluate, and control of workplace conditions that can lead to workers experiencing illness or injury. This oil and gas company as one of the oil and gas companies are faced with the problem of how to reduce the impact of occupational health. This study aims to design what should be done to manage occupational health risks in oil and gas company based on the framework of industrial hygiene.Data obtained from the Walk-through survey, Health Risk Assessent (HRA), and study the documents. This data is used as input to design the industrial hygiene work programs. The design of the work program was conducted with a variety of approaches, including strategic management concepts, isrs7, and the concept of industrial hygiene engineering, such as Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) and National Institute of Occupational Safety & Health (NIOSH) framework. This design gave birth to 34 strategic objectives, 113 Key Performance Indicator, and 18 major work program. Management Commitment, Employee Involvement, Written Program, Documentation and Reporting System, Contractor Management, Periodic Inspections, Hazard Information Collecting, Hazard Analyses, Hazard Control, Assessment Maintenance Equipments, Machine Tools and Maintenance, Emergency Preparedness and Response, Training, Medical Management, Audit, Compliance of Regulations and Standards, Trend Analyses and Program Effectiveness, and Final Review are the major work program.Three of the eighteen-work program, the Hazard Information Collecting, Hazard Analyses and Hazard Control, will be further differentiated by the type of hazard. Three work program is a program of work that focus directly to the handling of risk.