Meet our presenters

Oliver Wirth, Ph.D., Health Effects Laboratory Division, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)

Dr. Oliver Wirth is a Research Psychologist in the Health Effects Laboratory Division of the NIOSH and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Since joining NIOSH in 1998, his research interests have been broad, ranging from the application of behavioral technologies for the study of musculoskeletal injuries, vibration disorders, and other work-related injuries to observational sampling methods, feedback and training, and behavioral economics. He is currently the project officer on several NIOSH research studies, including a naturalistic driving study of commercial truck drivers, applications of discrete-choice methods for understanding safety-related decision making, and an investigation of assistance dogs in the workplace.

Dr. Wirth serves on the steering committees for the NIOSH Traumatic Injury and Total Worker HealthTM Programs and, more recently, the NIOSH Work Group on Safety Climate/Culture. He is a member of the Association for Behavioral Analysis, the Editorial Board of the Journal of Safety Research, and the board of trustees for the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies, where he also serves as commissioner for the accreditation of behavioral safety pro-grams.

Dr. Wirth obtained a Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology and a Doctorate degree in Psychology with an emphasis on behavior analysis. He also has a background in psychological assessment and conducting studies on learning and reinforcement theory with both human and nonhuman subjects.

Safety Culture and Safety Climate: Must it be so Complicated?

Bringing his experience to the Second Annual Appalachian Safety Summit, Dr. Oliver Wirth will give a presentation discussing how to disentangle the concepts of safety climate and culture and how various models of the concepts have important implications for the assessment and management of safety practices.

Despite almost universal agreement that safety climate and culture are important concepts for addressing occupational injuries and fatalities, the two constructs are not clearly defined. Both safety climate and culture appear frequently in literature and are often used interchangeably. Dr. Wirth will explain that these terms cannot be used as such. He will also re-view existing tools for measuring safety climate and culture.

This is only one of the many informative presentations we will be featuring at the Summit. Come and learn a variety of topics from these amazing speakers!