Safe Work in the 21st Century Education and Training Needs for the Next Decade's Occupational Safety and Health Personnel (2000) / Chapter Skim
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7 Education and Training Programs
7 Education and Training Programs
Pages 152-195
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From page 152... ...
Forty institutions offer occupational medicine residencies, and they annually produce about 90 graduates, a number that is probably insufficient for simple replacement of existing occupational medicine specialists. Attracting applicants is a large part of the problem, since the field draws heavily from established physicians, for whom return to full-time student status is not feasible.
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From page 153... ...
Occupational medicine has been the recipient of the most funding, reflecting the high cost of postgraduate specialist training for licensed physicians. Industrial hygiene has followed closely, with occupational health nursing receiving about 55 percent of the funding received by occupational medicine, and occupational safety receiving about one-third of the funding received by occupational medicine.
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From page 154... ...
Except for doctoral programs in the traditional OSH fields, this precludes eligibility for standard NIH-type categorical training grants. Hence, support for research students with OSH interests in other fields is largely through individual investigator-initiated research grants from NIOSH, NIEHS, or other NIH sources.
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From page 155... ...
, 32 U.S. schools offer programs leading to a bachelor of science degree in safety (American Society of Safety Engineers, 1999~.
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From page 156... ...
dealt with baccalaureate degrees, and subsequent efforts have addressed master's degrees in safety (American Society of Safety Engineers and Board of Certified Safety Professionals, 1994a) , safety engineering master's degrees and safety engineering options in other engineering master's degrees (American Society of Safety Engineers and Board of Certified Safety Professionals, 1994b)
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From page 157... ...
. introduction to safety and health, safety and health program management, design of engineering hazard control, industrial hygiene and toxicology (often a series of courses)
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From page 158... ...
Master's Degrees in Safety The authors of these standards recognize that there are two large groups of candidates for master's degrees: those who have undergraduate degrees in safety for whom the master's degree in safety is advanced study and those who have trained in a discipline other than safety for whom the master's degree in safety is initial preparation for a career in safety. General criteria include a baccalaureate degree with a course structure very similar to that outlined above but allow courses in safety-related subjects such as risk management, industrial psychology, hazardous materials management, and quality control as substitutes for safety courses.
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From page 159... ...
Continuing Education As noted in Chapter 2, certification is valid for only 5 years, at which point Certified Safety Professionals must provide BCSP with evidence of
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From page 160... ...
. However, as described in a subsequent section of this chapter, NIOSH funding for education of safety professionals is only about onethird of that for occupational medicine physicians and industrial hygienists and about two-thirds of that for occupational health nurses.
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From page 161... ...
Curricula The Related Accreditation Commission of ABET, with the assistance of the American Academy of Industrial Hygienists, provides a moderately detailed description of the required curricula for "industrial hygiene and similarly named engineering-related programs." Master's programs entail a minimum of 30 semester hours of interdisciplinary instruction and include special projects, research, and a thesis or internship. Research capability, management skills, and government relationships may be the subjects of special emphasis.
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From page 162... ...
Not only is annual participation a requirement for maintaining certification but it has also been the primary means of entry into the field for those unable to devote several years to graduate education and the most common introduction to industrial hygiene for worker and management personnel with responsibility for health and safety in medium-sized to large firms. The American Industrial Hygiene Association, the American Conference of Government Industrial Hygienists, the NIOSH Education and Research Centers and other universities that offer degrees in industrial hygiene and a myriad of private firms offer American Board of Industrial Hygiene (ABIH)
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From page 163... ...
This assertion is based, first, on the argument that because industrial hygienists and other OSH professionals are hired almost exclusively by medium-sized to large industries, much less than half of the current workforce ever interacts with an OSH professional of any sort, and probably less of the future workforce ever will do so. Second, even within the traditional areas of OSH practice, there has always been a tendency to integrate and merge technical and managerial functions, which can result in assigning industrial hygiene responsibilities to people with administrative and managerial skills instead of scientific and technical skills.
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From page 164... ...
OCCUPATIONAL MEDICINE RESIDENCIES As of lanuary 1999,40 institutions offered occupational medicine residency programs (American College of Preventive Medicine, 1999; Carol O'Neill, American College of Preventive Medicine, personal communication, tune 4, 1999~. These programs, which are distributed throughout the United States, provide 86 positions for the academic year and 95 positions for the practicum year.
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From page 165... ...
In 1997, for example, 92.5 percent of the graduates of the Wisconsin program passed the examination whereas 80 percent of conventional residency graduates and 61 percent for physicians without residency training who were eligible for the examination via the equivalency route passed the examination. In each of the past 3 years, approximately one-quarter of all physicians who have become board certified in occupational medicine had taken at least one course from the Medical College of Wisconsin Master of Public Health program.
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From page 166... ...
The practicum phase is a year of continued learning and supervised application of the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of preventive medicine in the field. The purpose of this phase is to prepare the resident for the comprehensive practice of occupational medicine and therefore must provide opportunities for the resident to deal with clinical, scientific, social, legal, and administrative issues from the perspectives of workers and their representatives, employers, and regulatory or legal authorities.
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From page 167... ...
Continuing Education Occupational medicine physicians, like all physicians, are required to participate in a certain amount of continuing medical education to keep their medical licenses. In addition, as described earlier in Chapter 2, physicians who become board certified in occupational medicine in or after
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From page 168... ...
, the number of graduates from residency programs is insufficient to meet the current and future demands for occupational medicine physicians. The supply is below the numbers needed for replacement of existing occupational medicine physicians.
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From page 169... ...
Return to full-time student status in an occupational medicine residency is not an attractive option for this population. The Occupational Physicians Scholarship Fund, an independent organization founded and directed by occupational medicine physicians from both academia and a wide variety of industries, has been successful in providing funding for some residents.
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From page 170... ...
Curricula In general nurses receiving a master's degree in public health with an occupational health nursing focus take courses with content in public health sciences, occupational health sciences, and occupational health nursing and often have a practicum experience. The public health science course work includes epidemiology, biostatistics, environmental sciences, health administration, and behavioral sciences.
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From page 171... ...
The goal of occupational health nursing content is to have a better understanding of means of assessing of worker and workforce illnesses and injuries as well as a better understanding of health promotion and protection concepts and principles so that effective intervention and prevention strategies can be designed and evaluated to improve worker health and safety and working conditions. Role function and leadership concepts and principles are emphasized.
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From page 172... ...
Future Needs The major shortfall in the occupational health nursing field is the same as that of the occupational medicine field; that is, there is not so much a shortage of practitioners as there is a shortage of practitioners with formal training in the field. The barriers to the production of more master's-level occupational health nurses are also similar to those that inhibit potential occupational medicine residents, especially the reluctance of mid-career professionals to return to full-time student status for 2 years.
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From page 173... ...
accordingly. Credentialing bodies, which generally dictate continuing education requirements, could use that mechanism to ensure that their technically trained members stay truly current as well.
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From page 174... ...
NIOSH supports both short-term continuing education courses for OSH professionals and others with worker safety and health responsibilities and also academic degree programs and postgraduate research opportunities in the areas of occupational medicine, occupational health nursing, industrial hygiene, and occupational safety. Appendix D contains a list of the 1999 grant holders, and Figure 7-2 displays the funding for each of these four disciplines between 1995 and 1999.
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From page 175... ...
Degree Programs OSH programs take a variety of forms across the myriad of industries and businesses of the United States, and the educational backgrounds of those who supervise, conduct, and participate in them vary widely as well. This chapter, like Chapter 2, focuses on the four traditional OSH disciplines occupational medicine, occupational health nursing, industrial hygiene, and occupational safety.
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From page 176... ...
Significantly fewer graduates come out of NIOSH-supported programs in Occupational Safety (about 70 annually) and Occupational Health Nursing (a little less than 50 per year)
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From page 177... ...
, trade unions, industry, and professional organizations, there is no universally recognized accreditation body and, hence, no guarantee of quality, nor is there generally any attempt to assess the efficacies of these courses. Figure 7-5 shows the number and type of continuing education courses and student-days of continuing education instruction provided by NIOSH-supported ERCs and TPGs.
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From page 178... ...
Not all of the students who took these continuing education courses were traditional OSH professionals. In fact, as Figure 7-7 shows, only about half the students who took NIOSH-supported continuing education courses in academic year 1996-1997 were safety professionals, industrial hygienists, occupational physicians, or occupational health nurses.
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From page 179... ...
. Occupational health nurse 14% Industrial hygienist 12% Occupational medicine physician 13% Safety professional 15% Other 45% U.// Paraprofessional 1% FIGURE 7-7 Backgrounds of students attending NIOSH-supported continuing education courses in 1996-1997.
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From page 180... ...
The OSHA Office of Training and Education offers training and training programs to federal and state OSHA personnel, state consultants, other federal agency personnel, and private-sector employers and employees. This is accomplished through short-term training courses at the OSHA Training Institute in Illinois and 12 regional OSHA Training Institute Education Centers, the Susan Harwood Training Grants Program, and the train-the-trainer Outreach Grants Program.
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From page 181... ...
. courses conducted by OSHA Training Institute staff in accordance with the administrative and program criteria guidelines that have been established by the International Association for Continuing Education and Training.
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From page 182... ...
Susan Harwood Training Grants Program OSHA began a serious effort to increase and improve worker training in the late 1970s with a program called New Directions in which several million dollars in grants were given to unions and trade associations to develop training materials for workers and to provide training. A very large volume of training materials and training were generated from those initial grants.
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From page 183... ...
It will instruct trainers who will then train local union members. Outreach Grants Program The OSHA Outreach Grants Program is a train-the-trainer program that authorizes individuals who have completed a 1-week OSHA training course to teach 10- or 30-hour courses in general industry or construction safety and health standards.
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From page 184... ...
are 5 years of construction safety experience and completion of course 510, Occupational Safety and Health Standards for the Construction Industry. The courses are conducted by the OSHA Training Institute and by 12 OSHA Training Institute Education Centers located around the country.
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From page 185... ...
Since initiation of its Superfund Worker Training Grants Program in 1987, NIEHS has been funding non-profit organizations with a demonstrated track record of providing OSH education to develop training for and deliver training to workers involved in handling hazardous waste or in responding to emergency releases of hazardous materials. The major objective of the NIEHS Worker Education and Training Program is to prevent work-related harm by assisting in the training of workers on how best to protect themselves and their communities from exposure to hazardous materials encountered during hazardous waste operations, hazardous materials transportation, environmental restoration of nuclear weapons facilities, or chemical emergency response.
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From page 186... ...
established the MSHA to enforce compliance with mandatory safety and health standards as a means of eliminating fatal accidents, reducing the frequency and severity of nonfatal accidents, and promoting improved safety and health conditions in the nation's mines. lust as OSHA carries out the mandates of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 for most industries other than mining, MSHA carries out the mandates of the Mine Act at all mining and mineral processing operations in the United States, regardless of size, number of employees, the commodity mined, or the method of extraction.
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From page 187... ...
Courses are offered on safety and inspection procedures, accident prevention, investigations, industrial hygiene, mine emergency procedures, technology, management techniques, and other topics. Courses range in duration from 2 hours to 8 days.
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From page 188... ...
, and other respirable dust problems; · best practices techniques developed cooperatively by labor, management, and government groups; · comprehensive training modules and a videotape on accepted job safety analysis methods and step-by-step miner task training procedures for use by supervisors and forepersons in diverse types of mining; · course materials that review basic ventilation principles and practices for underground coal mines; · a training program that features slides that illustrate fatal accidents in mining in recent years; and Issues. · a monthly bulletin that features articles on topical health and safety Degree Programs in Mining Engineering Although in many respects MSHA worker training could be a model worth emulating in other industries, it should be clear from the previous paragraphs that MSHA does not provide any support for university-based educational programs that lead to graduate or undergraduate degrees in mine safety or health.
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From page 189... ...
The Mine Safety and Health Research Advisory Committee, at its tune 10, 1999 meeting, asked NIOSH to examine the weakened state of the nation's mining schools and their ability to produce qualified personnel in health and safety matters and make recommendations on models of research and education funding that would address this problem. Such an examination of a single industry is beyond the scope of the present report, but the committee recognizes the reported difficulties of the mining engineering field as an instance of the more general problem of the occupational safety field in attracting and retaining doctoral-level scientist-educators to train future generations of safety practitioners.
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From page 190... ...
developed a rigorous process that requires OSH professionals (i.e., industrial hygienists, safety engineers, doctors, and nurses) to attain specified levels of predetermined competencies on the basis of job descriptions aligned to meet a broadened array of employee well-being needs for a global business.
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From page 191... ...
Tuition reimbursement for academic course work and degree programs surveyed was available in nearly all companies. Corporations with sizable OSH staffs may also develop and conduct internal conferences, training programs, and courses.
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From page 192... ...
such as the Susan Harwood Training Grants Program in the 1990s. Some unions, such as many unions for construction workers, offer all new workers safety training as part of their apprenticeship programs, such as the building trades standardized 10-hour OSHA training curriculum called Smart Mark.
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From page 193... ...
The authors also emphasized that because few of the studies reviewed actually manipulated variables like class size, length or frequency of training, trainer qualifications, mode of training, and management involvement, it was impossible to say what factors produce the greatest impact. Training and education of workers has not traditionally been considered a prime responsibility of most OSH professionals.
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From page 194... ...
The OSHAct of 1970 is far less specific on this division than the agencies' policies might imply (see Chapter 1~. The committee again recommends large-scale demonstration projects that target small- and medium-sized employers and encourages the use of new learning technologies, the development of a recommended set of basic competencies, and the creation or recognition of a new category of OSH personnel, the occupational safety and health manager.
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From page 195... ...
EDUCATION AND TRAINING PROGRAMS 195 culture of safety and health in the general public. Accomplishing this is a large, long-term, multifaceted project that will require leadership from the U.S.
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