The issue of how important credentials are for safety professionals got a bit more clarity recently, with a review by the American Industrial Hygiene Association® (AIHA) and the American Board of Industrial Hygiene® (ABIH).

The two organizations teamed up to check existing state laws and regulations and determine how many of them reference professional titles such as Certified Industrial Hygienist (CIH) and Certified Safety Professional (CSP), which indicate that a person has been certified by a nationally recognized and accredited organization.

350 mentions

The initiative found 48 states with regulations or rules that contained at least one reference to one of the terms identified for the project. In those states, 224 state regulations and 106 statutes contained references to the IH profession. Together, almost 350 different statutes and regulations mentioned the IH profession. 

According to AIHA Government Affairs Director Aaron K. Trippler, the most encouraging result was the number of times the CIH designation was referenced.

The CIH designation

“The CIH (designation) appeared165 times in state statutes and 155 times in state regulations and rules. IH professionals should feel very pleased with this result,” said Trippler, who serves as AIHA’s chief liaison with Congress and federal agencies. 

Trippler said the AIHA and ABIH will continue to make sure that the IH profession is referenced in regulations and statutes wherever possible.

“Between states’ statutes and regulations, the IH profession is referenced more than 1,600 times. Our hope is that when this project is updated in the next couple of years, the results will show an even larger increase in the number of regulations and statutes that mention this profession,” added Trippler.

Additional Information:

The project findings are available on the ABIH website, where searchable PDF documents for each state include links to relevant laws and regulations so that users can more easily locate the full regulatory text. Click on the name of a state to view the statutes and regulations that mention industrial hygiene terms of interest in that state. 

?For a brief summary of the results, download the two-page PDF available from the government affairs section of the AIHA website.