OSHA is forming a National Advisory Committee on Occupational Safety and Health Heat Injury and Illness Prevention Work Group to provide better understanding of challenges and to identify and share best practices to protect workers. What does this mean for employers?
For the first time, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has launched a National Emphasis Program to protect millions of workers from heat illness and injuries. Through the program, OSHA will conduct heat-related workplace inspections before workers suffer completely preventable injuries, illnesses or, even worse, fatalities.
Dripping beads of sweat and getting a sunburn aren’t the only signs you’ve been spending too much time in the sun. New research shows the effects of heat and humidity are more far-reaching and affect more body systems than we realized.
Heat stress occurs when employees are exposed to high heat and high humidity environments, indoors or outdoors. Though preventable, heat stress signs and symptoms can go unrecognized until the full exposure to the heat presents itself.
Working in the recesses of Apalachicola National Forest on a July day as temperatures neared 100 degrees, the supervisor of two crews hired to clear invasive plants saw one 42-year-old worker was sweating heavily, his hands were trembling, and he seemed confused, unable to respond to commands.
Together with a Biden-Harris administration interagency effort, the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration published an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for Heat Injury and Illness Prevention in Outdoor and Indoor Work Settings on Oct. 27, 2021.
Record-breaking heat in the U.S. in 2021 endangered millions of workers exposed to heat illness and injury in both indoor and outdoor work environments. Workers in outdoor and indoor work settings without adequate climate-controlled environments are at risk of hazardous heat exposure, and workers of color are exposed disproportionately to hazardous levels of heat in essential jobs across these work settings.
The American Society of Safety Professionals (ASSP) maintains data-driven and solutions-based positions on issues that impact occupational safety and health. ASSP has developed new policy statements on anticipated federal standards related to heat stress and COVID-19 as it aims to inform government officials and key stakeholders in improving the regulatory approach to workplace safety and health.
OSHA is implementing an enforcement initiative on heat-related hazards, developing a National Emphasis Program on heat inspections, and launching a rulemaking process to develop a workplace heat standard.
As brutal heat continues this summer, a report published in August by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) says outdoor workers in the United States could face four times as many days with hazardous heat by mid-century if action isn't taken to reduce greenhouse gas pollution.