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The passage of the OSH Act of 1970 was probably one of the primary driving forces creating the need for qualified safety and health professionals in the workplace. In the early days of OSHA, the demand for SH&E professionals was the result of businesses' desire to "comply with OSHA."
Over the past 35 years, the SH&E profession has matured from a compliance-driven profession to one that promotes safety culture in which a company strives to manage safety in the workplace, much in the same manner they manage other aspects of their business.
With this need for safety in the workplace came the need for qualified SH&E professionals. Through needs assessments conducted by NIOSH in the mid-1970s, it was apparent that there was a shortage of qualified industrial safety and health specialists to meet the challenge of worker safety and health.
In response to federal goals and in an effort to alleviate manpower shortages, NIOSH established 12 centers of learning at select universities across the country [NIOSH 2005(a)]. The mission of NIOSH centers includes support of "academic degree programs and research training opportunities in the core areas of industrial hygiene, occupational health nursing, occupational medicine and occupational safety, plus specialized areas relevant to the occupational safety and health field" (NIOSH 2003). Today, there are 16 NIOSH education and research centers (ERCs) located throughout the U.S. fulfilling this vital role for the safety profession. (See the profile article about one ERC on page 4.)
Today, the SH&E profession finds itself confronting the same issues it did in the mid-1970s. Like many other professions in the U.S., SH&E could soon be facing a shortage of qualified individuals entering the workplace. As the average age of the population increases, many individuals currently working as safety managers, educators, industrial hygienists and safety engineers will soon be retiring, creating this potential shortage of well-qualified and degreed individuals to fill the jobs vacated by retirements. This is further compounded by a lack of SH&E professionals with doctoral degrees in safety necessary to prepare safety students.
Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) expects employment of occupational safety and health specialists and technicians to grow about as fast as the average for all occupations through 2012, reflecting a balance of continuing public demand for a safe and healthy work environment against the desire for smaller government and fewer regulations (BLS 2005). This can be interpreted as a growth in employment of approximately 10 to 20 percent from 2002 to 2012.
The shortage of qualified SH&E professionals is expected to be felt even more at the universities and colleges that prepare future SH&E professionals. This shortage can be expected due to employment demands of SH&E professionals, retirement of current faculty, terminal degree requirements to teach in safety degree programs and the availability of doctoral degree programs in safety.
The employment demands for SH&E professionals in industry and business draws down the number of individuals available or willing to go on to obtain doctorates and teach at the university level.
With a projected 10 to 20 percent increase in employment of SH&E professionals, universities face even greater competition in hiring qualified individuals. In a survey of 31 safety and safety-related degree programs, approximately 21 percent stated they are currently conducting a search for faculty positions in a safety or safety-related program, while approximately 77 percent indicated they saw a need to conduct a faculty search in the next five years. Results indicate a projected need for approximately 71 positions to be filled over the next five years (Janicak 2005).
Safety degree program faculty retirement over the next 10 years will place even greater hiring demands on universities. Many of today's university and college professors, hired during the great expansion of academe in the 1960s and 1970s, are now reaching retirement (Fogg 2005). The proportion of professors age 50 or over has significantly increased over the decade. At some institutions, almost 40 percent of the faculty members are 55 or older (Fogg 2005).
In a survey of 31 safety and safety-related degree programs, college and university safety degree programs were asked to project the number of faculty expected to retire over the next 10 years to 2013. Approximately 85 percent expect to have one or more faculty members retire. Approximately 62 positions would become available over the next 10 years due to these retirements. The number of faculty retiring in a program ranged from one faculty member to as many as six faculty members (Janicak 2005).
The terminal degree for occupational safety degree programs is the doctorate. The most frequently identified difficulty for institutions in finding qualified candidates for faculty positions is the lack of a doctorate in safety or a safety-related field (60.7 percent) followed by having to compete with salaries in industry (53.6 percent) (Janicak 2005).
In 2000, NIOSH asked the Institute of Medicine to analyze the changes in the workplace since 1970; assess the supply of, demand for, and knowledge, skills and abilities of occupational safety and health professionals; and identify the needs, skills and curricula required for the coming decades (Institute of Medicine 2000). Findings from this study concluded that fewer than 10 students were awarded doctoral degrees in occupational safety each year, a level low enough to threaten the future viability of academic departments of occupational safety (Institute of Medicine 2000).
Reasons for the decline in graduate safety programs include 1) a strong employment market for those with baccalaureate safety degrees; 2) lack of incentives by employers for employees to pursue graduate safety degrees, 3) lack of faculty with advanced safety degrees -particularly Ph.D.s-to staff graduate programs; and 4) the fact that other graduate programs-particularly those that are health-related-often integrate nonspecific safety content in their curricula believing that it will provide adequate preparation for their graduates (Petrea 2003).
A review of the doctoral degrees offered by institutions identified as NIOSH ERCs indicates that there are approximately 34 doctoral degrees offered across the 16 institutions. Two doctoral degree programs specifically named occupational safety were identified in the list of NIOSH ERCs. The majority of the doctorates are offered in occupational medicine, industrial hygiene, occupational health nursing and epidemiology [NIOSH 2005(b)].
Another program sponsored by NIOSH is the Training Project Grant (TPG) program, which is intended for degree programs focused on occupational safety and health. NIOSH is mandated to provide an adequate supply of qualified personnel to carry out the purposes of the OSH Act and the TPG is one of the means for meeting this mandate [NIOSH 2005(c)]. Examination of the training project grants indicated that 40 institutions received funding in 2004. A review of academic programs found that none of those institutions offers a doctoral degree specifically in occupational safety or safety sciences.
Board of Certified Safety Professionals (BCSP) maintains a searchable database of safety and safety-related academic degree programs in the U.S. A search of that database yielded one doctoral degree specifically in occupational safety and health (BCSP 2005). The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) accredits safety and safety-related degree programs. As of 2005, there were no ABET-accredited doctoral degree programs in the U.S. (ABET 2005).
To alleviate the potential shortages of safety faculty, the number of SH&E professionals with doctoral degrees in the field must be increased. The number of doctoral degrees in safety and accessibility to the degree needs to be increased. To increase the likelihood that SH&E professionals will attend graduate school in order to obtain a doctorate, the standard model degree program requiring the individual to stop working for up to four years in order to complete courses and a dissertation is likely not the most appropriate model. The profession has to be creative in its approach to offering the doctoral degree to ensure adequate numbers of students to make the degree viable. The degree program would have to consist of distance education, evening coursework and weekend coursework.
There are many paths into and through the various ranks of the SH&E profession. However, few would disagree that the most expeditious path to professional work in safety is through a safety degree program. Preparation should include successful completion of appropriate coursework leading to certification.
The dilemma the SH&E profession is facing is threefold. First, there is an increasing demand for qualified SH&E professionals. Second, there is a shortage of SH&E professionals degreed at the doctoral level in safety to teach future SH&E professionals. Third, there is a shortage of doctoral degree programs available to produce enough SH&E professionals with doctoral degrees in the field. While the ERCs offer many doctorates in occupational medicine, industrial hygiene and occupational nursing, it appears that occupational safety is offered the least of all degrees. As a result, our profession finds itself in the same dilemma it was in during the mid-1970s.
Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) (2005). Accredited Applied Science Programs. Baltimore, MD: ABET, 2005. http://www.abet.org/schoolareaasac.asp.
Board of Certified Safety Professionals (BCSP). Academic Database Search. Savoy, IL: Board of Certified Safety Professionals, 2005. http://www.bcsp.org/bcsp/index.php?option=com_acsearch&task=section&action=view&Itemid=120.
Fogg, P. "Advancing in Age." The Chronicle of Higher Education. 51, 39: A6 - A8, 2005.
Institute of Medicine. Safe Work in the 21st Century. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 2000.
Janicak, C. "Identifying the Needs for a Terminal Degree in Safety for Faculty Teaching in Safety and Safety-Related Degree Programs in Higher Education in the U.S." (Manuscript submitted to Professional Safety, 2005.)
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). Office of Extramural Programs. Washington, DC: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, 2003. http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/oep/training.html.
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) (2005a). Educational Research Centers History. Washington, DC: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Dept.
of Health and Human Services. http://www.niosh-erc.org/ERChistory/history.htm.
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) (2005b). Academic Programs. Washington, DC: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services. http://www.niosh -erc.org/academic/Default.htm.
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) (2005c). Training Project Grants. Washington, DC: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services. http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/oep/trngrnt.html.
Petrea, R.E. Using History and Accomplishments to Plan for the Future: A Summary of 15 Years in Agricultural Safety and Health and Action Steps for Future Directions. Urbana, IL: Agricultural Safety and Health Network, 2003.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) (2005). Occupational Outlook Handbook: 2004-05. http://bls.gov/oco/ocos017.htm.