The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is establishing a new method to assess the toxicity and danger of chemicals in workplace environments. NIOSH attempts to prevent workplace injuries from chemicals and hazardous materials by providing scientific research, issuing recommendations, educating employers and workers, and conducting evaluations. This spring the institute issued a bulletin updating its process and criteria for identifying hazardous materials. According to NIOSH Director John Howard, the bulletin was not only to update the protocol, but to also increase transparency regarding the method used to characterize harmful chemicals.
NIOSH limits worker exposure to chemicals and hazardous materials it characterizes as immediately dangerous to life and health (IDLH). NIOSH and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) first developed occupational health standards together in 1974, and have continually been adding to the IDLH list, which is available on the NIOSH website.
Their new proposed system is similar to other risk assessment applications, and includes the following steps:
- Characterizing and classifying the hazard
- Identifying the harm it causes
- Determining of the overall risk
The bulletin includes a discussion of the data and method used to make the IDLH characterization.
Worker Injuries Create Large Costs
According to NIOSH statistics:
- A total of 5,488 U.S. workers died from work-related injuries in 2007, the most recent year available
- Work-related diseases kill 49,000 annually
- In 2007, an estimated 4.0 million private-sector workers had a nonfatal occupational injury or illness
- Emergency departments treated approximately 3.4 million workers in 2004 because of occupational injuries, and approximately 80,000 were hospitalized
Workplace injuries and illnesses cost employers around $85 billion annually, which does not include the extra costs that many workers face after a serious workplace injury. If you were injured from workplace exposure to hazardous materials you may be able to obtain much-needed compensation. Contact a workers' compensation attorney right away.
