Howard Outlines PtD Efforts

If you have not seen it, NIOSH Director John Howard in the October e-NEWS outlined the various efforts NIOSH and others are undertaking to champion safety through its Prevention through Design (PtD) initiative, including ASSE’s new voluntary consensus standard.   Note the recognition of Donna Heidel at the end, which is well deserved from the view of the various ASSE members who have worked on this effort with her. From  http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/enews/enewsv9n6.html?source=govdelivery

From the Director’s Desk

Safety and Health…by Design

I am pleased that the Prevention through Design (PtD) National Initiative continues to gain momentum as it enters its fifth year. NIOSH’s current partners in crafting and advancing this national initiative are the American Industrial Hygiene Association, the American Society of Safety Engineers, CPWR-the Center for Construction Research and Training, Kaiser Permanente, Liberty Mutual, the National Safety Council, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, ORC Worldwide, and the Regenstrief Center for Healthcare Engineering. We look forward to expanding this distinguished list with additional partners.

PtD embodies the concept of reducing the risk of work-related injuries and illnesses by designing out hazards and minimizing occupational risks throughout the life cycle of work premises, equipment, tools, processes, and products, including their construction, manufacture, use, maintenance, and ultimate disposal or reuse. PtD emphasizes the importance of giving prospective attention to safety and health before blueprints are drawn, a much wiser and much preferred alternative to the time and cost of retroactively correcting a problem, or even worse, to dealing with the consequences once an injury, illness, or death occurs in the workplace.

Like the proverbial ounce of prevention, designing for worker safety and health up front is a wise investment that will repay itself many times over.

As we and our partners plan for the next five years of PtD and beyond, three recent accomplishments this year are worth noting. Each in its own way illustrates the power of PtD as a model for improving occupational safety and health in the 21st century:

• The American Society of Safety Engineers approved a professional standard for including PtD concepts within an occupational safety and health management system. The consensus standard, American National Standards Institute (ANSI)/ASSE Standard Z590.3, “Prevention through Design: Guidelines for Addressing Occupational Risks in Design and Redesign Processes,” can be applied in any occupational setting. Development and publication of this standard was a major goal for NIOSH and partners in the PtD national initiative, since ANSI standards are widely consulted and used as technical templates and guides for safety and health programs and interventions. For additional details, see the news brief in this issue of NIOSH eNews and the NIOSH Science Blog entry by Donna Heidel, coordinator of the PtD National Initiative, for September 22. http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/blog/nsb092211_ptd.html.
• NIOSH and its partners convened the very successful national conference, PtD: A Report on the National Initiative, on August 22–24 in Washington, DC. Plenary and break-out sessions addressed research, practice, education, and policy issues in PtD and featured presentations by diverse leaders in the industry, labor, and research communities. The conference presented an opportunity at the five-year mark to revisit the goals of PtD, assess the progress made since the first national workshop was held in 2007, and identify ongoing needs. We appreciate the hard work by NIOSH staff and their partners in planning and hosting the conference, and we look forward to continued progress that can be highlighted the next time we convene on this scale.
• Now available from NIOSH, the Summary of the Making Green Jobs Safe Workshop synopsizes the presentations and deliberations from the December 2009 conference on Safe Green Jobs, cosponsored by NIOSH, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, and the National Toxicology Program. PtD is a vital concept for America’s “green” industries. As we look to the economic and environmental benefits of developing and using cleaner energy sources and industrial processes, we must ensure that those processes are safe and healthful for the men and women who work in them. This initiative reaffirms the historic ties between the environmental, health, and safety movements that led to cleaner air, cleaner water, and safer workplaces in the last quarter of the 20^th century. Looking forward, it advances PtD as a foundational principle for the new industries that will help us to reboot our economy and maintain U.S. leadership in the global markets of the 21st century. The document is available at http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/2011-201/.

I want to recognize the leadership of Donna Heidel, Paul Schulte, and others at NIOSH. Their dedication has helped to engage a growing roster of partners, establish clear goals that are simultaneously ambitious and achievable, and achieve major milestones in PtD since 2007. Please visit the PtD topic page at http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/PtD/ and—if you haven’t already done so-please consider ways in which you can lend your talents and experience to this 21^st century initiative.