What are the hot issues?

One barometer is to look at the recently formed working groups that will be holding meetings in at AIHce 2013 in Montreal:

• Nanotechnology working group
• Incident preparation and response working group
• Oil and gas working group
• Control banding working group
• Clandestine laboratory working group
• Green building working group

For the most part, these working groups are addressing issues outside the traditional purvey of industrial hygiene. But they do a good job of reflecting current events in the health and safety world.

Another measure of “what’s hot” is to list the various committees that will be meeting in Montreal. Again, the scope of these committees, when viewed as a whole, show how the field of industrial hygiene is not your father’s (or mother’s) idea of industrial hygiene – technical anticipation, detection, evaluation and control of workplace health hazards.

• Management committee
• Engineering committee
• Indoor environmental quality committee
• Law committee
• Exposure assessment strategies committee
• Social concerns committee
• Protective clothing and equipment committee
• Safety committee
• Toxicology committee
• Students and early career professionals committee
• Biological monitoring committee
• Stewardship and sustainability committee
• Respiratory protection committee
• Occupational and environmental medicine committee
• International committee
• Construction committee
• Pharmaceutical round robin committee
• Biosafety and environmental microbiology committee
• Nonionizing radiation committee
• Noise committee
• Risk assessment committee
• Confined spaces committee
• Career and employment services committee

Check ISHN.com regularly for updates from AHIce 2013 from ISHN Chief Editor Dave Johnson.