Partners in the Name of Safety
NIOSH and ASSE are working together to make your workplace safer.

By Ellen Jensen

A year and a half ago, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) established an agreement to work together to provide outreach, communication and professional development opportunities, as well as to improve the transfer and use of effective workplace injury prevention measures. The agreement has been successful enough that the two organizations recently have extended the partnership for another three years.

Background
NIOSH is in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and was established to help ensure safe and healthful working conditions by providing research, information, education and training in the field of occupational safety and health. NIOSH provides national and world leadership to prevent work-related illness, injury, disability and death by gathering information, conducting scientific research and translating the knowledge gained into products and services.

Founded in 1911, ASSE is the oldest and largest professional safety organization. Its more than 30,000 members manage, supervise and consult on safety, health and environmental issues in industry, insurance, government and education. ASSE has 13 practice specialties, 150 chapters, 56 sections and 64 student sections.

ASSE has been helpful with identifying industries to partner with on research projects, said Nancy Stout, director, Division of Safety Research for NIOSH.

“They help us disseminate requests and help connect us with an industry partner to help develop or test interventions that we develop here,” Stout said. Interventions are solutions to prevent injury in the workplace.

Each day, an average of 9,000 U.S. workers sustain disabling injuries on the job, 16 workers die from an injury suffered at work and 137 workers die from work-related diseases, according to NIOSH. In the Liberty Mutual 2002 Workplace Safety Index, the Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety estimates that direct costs for occupational injuries in 1999 rose to $40.1 billion, with indirect costs reaching over $200 billion.

Information Exchange
One of the most important benefits of the partnership is the sharing of information. ASSE has 13 practice specialties and newsletters, and now NIOSH is able to use those newsletters as a vehicle to share new research findings or other information with ASSE members, including small businesses, Stout said.

“We participate in their conferences on topics such as work stress and health, as well as their professional development conferences,” she said. “We present our NIOSH research and current priorities and research to spread the word more widely among ASSE members.”
She added that ASSE has appointed one of the NIOSH staff to the ASSE Foundation Research Subcommittee, which reviews and recommends research proposals to be funded by the foundation.

Small Business Connection
Even with a system that works fairly well, there always is room for improvement, and both organizations hope that the partnership will continue to improve communication across the board.

“Our members are concerned that for some reason many small businesses are not getting occupational safety, health and environmental information on rules and regulations, and basics on how to develop and implement an effective safety and health system in the workplace,” said Diane Hurns, ASSE manager, public relations.

She added that such a system contributes positively to the bottom line through reduced workers’ compensation costs, reduced health care costs, increased productivity, happier and healthier employees, and increased credibility in the marketplace and with vendors and communities in which they do business. There are many educational resources available in addition to those offered by ASSE and NIOSH, including the Occupational Safety & Health Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency, she said.

Hurns said ASSE offers professional development opportunities for everyone throughout the country. They are open to all safety, health and environmental (SH&E) practitioners to provide them with the knowledge they need to increase safety in the workplace—no matter where that workplace is.

“Our 150 chapters across the country each month hold their own meetings and activities, which are open to the public as well as chapter members,” Hurns said. “During the meetings, they address a specific topic on SH&E in an effort to keep their members apprised of new SH&E efforts, or to learn what works and what doesn't as they continue to increase workplace safety.”

She added that at many of these local events and at some of the larger professional development conferences, members of NIOSH and OSHA—experts in their areas—share information with the audience and point them toward resources they can use today to increase workplace safety.

Education and Information
“We do a lot of work with small business across NIOSH, we just don’t necessarily break it out,” said Paul Schulte, director, NIOSH Education and Information Division. “We hope to do more where we think strategically about what we’re doing with small businesses.”

His division has issued a report ranking small business industries according to the number of injuries, illnesses and deaths related to work so that people who wanted to do research on small business occupations and health issues could use that as a roadmap.

“We have a lot of different research going on to develop useful products,” Schulte said. “One of things we are doing is reviewing different engineering solutions to create a database of what works and what doesn’t work, and what solutions would be useful for small business.”

Ellen Jensen is the managing editor of Kansas City Small Business Monthly magazine.