The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) – the federal agency charged with developing new knowledge in the field of occupational safety and health and helping to transfer that knowledge into practice – is currently active in a number of areas, including:

New Respiratory Protection Program Training

NIOSH and the American Association of Occupational Health Nurses (AAOHN) recently released a new Respiratory Protection Program Training. The program includes a respiratory protection course and accompanying resources for occupational health professionals who want to learn more about OSHA's Respiratory Protection Standard and the role of the respiratory protection program administrator. You do NOT need to be an AAOHN member to participate in this free training or access the training resources.

Updated website for hazardous drug exposures in healthcare

Update your bookmarks! NIOSH recently updated the Hazardous Drugs and Antineoplastic Agents webpages to enhance user navigation experience. All information related to our hazardous drugs listing, including antineoplastic agents, can now be found at one location. Stay tuned to this website for future updates to the NIOSH Antineoplastic and Other Hazardous Drugs List.

Find publicly available data you can easily analyze! Use the NIOSH data visualization tool to examine OSH issues

NIOSH recently added new data sets to its Worker Health Charts (WHC) tool. Built for researchers, educators, health professionals, and policy makers, WHC can be used to visualize occupational data for research and public health purposes. WHC produces different chart types depending on the query options you select. Email any questions or comments to WHC.niosh@cdc.gov.

New version of the Permeation Calculator

NIOSH recently released version 3.0.0 of the Permeation Calculator software program for analyzing chemical permeation test data. Version 3.0.0 is a cross-platform permeation calculator, running on both Windows and macOS computers, unlike the earlier version (2.5.0) that is only compatible with Windows computers. Version 3.0.0 has an improved graphical user interface that provides a natural and intuitive way of performing the permeation calculation. It is also capable of reading data files in the latest Excel format, while the earlier version only reads files in the 1997–2003 Excel format.

Special focus on young drivers

NIOSH also has resources on the special challenges involving the safety of young drivers – whether they’re driving for work or on their own.

NEW fact sheet for employers & parents—Young Drivers in the Workplace

Young workers – those age 16-24 – are gaining valuable work experience, but may also still be developing their driving skills. NIOSH has developed a new fact sheet that provides information on workplace driving laws that are important to follow so that young drivers may gain work experience under the safest conditions possible. It also provides recommendations on how to promote safe driving and prevent crashes among young workers who drive as part of their job.

#TeenDriver Twitter chat on Oct 18

Learn how parents/guardians and employers play an important role in keeping young drivers safe on the road. As part of National Teen Driver Safety Week, NIOSH and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) will co-host a #TeenDriver Twitter chat on October 18 from 3 to 4 p.m. ET. Follow @NIOSH_MVSafety and @NHTSAgov for more information.