What kinds of injuries do OSHA inspections prevent?

Objective

OSHA's enforcement program is one of the major public efforts to protect American workers. We examine both the scope of injury prevention that inspections can contribute and the types of standards that contribute the most.

Methods

We linked Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry files for lost-time injuries and employment to calculate injury rates for 1998-2005 for all single-establishment manufacturing firms. We linked these to OSHA inspection records.

Results

Inspections with penalties did affect injury types unrelated to standards as well as those related. We also found again that citations for violations of the standard requiring personal protective equipment had the largest impact on preventing injuries.

Impact on Industry

Programs requiring protective equipment use deserve added attention from consultants and inspectors. In addition, some inspections spur managers to undertake safety measures that go beyond compliance with standards.     

Changes in fall prevention training for apprentice carpenters based on a comprehensive needs assessment

Problem

Falls from heights in residential construction are common, especially among inexperienced workers.

Methods

We conducted a comprehensive needs assessment to determine gaps in the school-based apprentice carpenters' fall prevention training. A team of carpenter instructors and researchers revised the fall prevention training to fill these gaps. Apprentice evaluation and feedback guided ongoing curricular improvements.

Results

Most apprentice carpenters performed work tasks at heights prior to training and fall protection techniques were not commonly used at residential construction sites. Priorities of the revised school-based training included safe ladder habits, truss setting, scaffold use, guarding floor openings, and using personal fall arrest systems. New apprentices were targeted to ensure training prior to exposure at the workplace. We used adult learning principles to emphasize hands-on experiences. A framed portion of a residential construction site was fabricated to practice fall protection behaviors in a realistic setting. The revised curriculum has been delivered consistently and apprentice feedback has been very favorable.

Conclusions

Integration of needs assessment results was invaluable in revising the school-based carpenters apprentice fall prevention curriculum. Working closely with the instructors to tailor learning experiences has provided preliminary positive results.

Impact on Industry

The fall safety of the residential construction industry continues to lag behind commercial construction and industrial settings. The National Occupational Research Agenda includes a Strategic Goal to strengthen and extend the reach of quality training and education in the construction industry via mechanisms such as construction safety and health training needs assessments. This study demonstrates how a structured process can be used to identify and remedy gaps and improve training effectiveness. We encourage others to take steps to assess and increase the impact of training efforts directed at all residential construction professionals; including both union and non-union workers. The implications are even greater in the non-union sector where most U.S. residential work is done.     

The effects of airbags and seatbelts on occupant injury in longitudinal barrier crashes

Introduction

Longitudinal barriers, such as guardrails, are designed to prevent a vehicle that leaves the roadway from impacting a more dangerous object while minimizing the risk of injury to the vehicle occupants. Current full-scale test procedures for these devices do not consider the effect of occupant restraints such as seatbelts and airbags. The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which restraints are used or deployed in longitudinal barrier collisions and their subsequent effect on occupant injury.

Methods

Binary logistic regression models were generated to predict occupant injury risk using data from the National Automotive Sampling System / Crashworthiness Data System from 1997 through 2007.

Results

In tow-away longitudinal barrier crashes, airbag deployment rates were 70% for airbag-equipped vehicles. Compared with unbelted occupants without an airbag available, seat belt restrained occupants with an airbag available had a dramatically decreased risk of receiving a serious (MAIS 3+) injury (odds-ratio (OR) = 0.03; 95% CI: 0.004-0.24). A similar decrease was observed among those restrained by seat belts, but without an airbag available (OR = 0.03; 95% CI: 0.001- 0.79). No significant differences in risk of serious injuries were observed between unbelted occupants with an airbag available compared with unbelted occupants without an airbag available (OR = 0.53; 95% CI = 0.10-2.68).

Impact on Industry

This study refutes the perception in the roadside safety community that airbags rarely deploy in frontal barrier crashes, and suggests that current longitudinal barrier occupant risk criteria may over-estimate injury potential for restrained occupants involved in a longitudinal barrier crash.     

Roles of academia in regional sustainability initiatives: outreach for a more sustainable future

Institutions of Higher Education have to cope with an array of challenges in the 21st century including globalization of teaching, research and outreach activities; additionally there are dramatic increases in competition for students, staff and funding sources. Meanwhile, local and regional involvement in regional sustainable development is increasing in importance as well. This latter process is driven by the mandates from many sources for academic involvement in working on the multi-faceted issues pertaining to Sustainable Development (SD). This requires concerted action not only at the global, but also at the local and regional levels. This article provides an overview of this special issue of the Journal of Cleaner Production on the Roles of Academia in Regional Sustainable Development Initiatives. The essence of the 11 articles contained in this special issue is summarized and contextualized within the rapidly evolving academic efforts on SD. Recommendations are made of ways for academia to help their regions to make more rapid progress toward SD via involvement of their faculty, students and staff in Regional SD programs and processes.     

The role of co-operation between academia and policymakers for the development and use of sustainability indicators – a case from the Finnish Kymenlaakso Region

In this article, we analyze the co-operation between academia and other stakeholders in the development and use of sustainability indicators. The empirical case is a self-assessment of a Life-Environment project, ECOREG (2002–2004), in which eco-efficiency indicators were constructed for the Finnish Kymenlaakso Region. In the article the relationship between academia and local decision-makers in both the ECOREG Project and the activities thereafter is examined. Contrary to many sustainability indicator initiatives the ECOREG indicators have been updated and used after the original project ended. A main conclusion of the article is that the use of the indicators is largely influenced by how they were originally developed. More specifically, that knowledge was jointly produced instead of being merely transferred from academia to policymakers affected the relevance of the indicators as well as the capabilities of local actors to use, update and further develop the indicators.     

Heavy-duty,off-road diesel engine low-load particle number emissions and particle control

Exhaust gas particle and ion size distributions were measured from an off-road diesel engine complying with the European Stage IIIB emission standard. The measurements were performed at idling and low load conditions on an engine dynamometer. Nucleation-mode particles dominated the diesel exhaust particle number emissions at idle load. The nonvolatile nucleation-mode geometric mean diameter was detected at 10 nm or below. The nonvolatile nucleation-mode charge state implied that it has evolved through a highly ionizing environment before emission from the engine. The determined charging probabilities were 10.0 ± 2.2% for negative and 8.0 ± 2.0% for positive polarity particles. The nonvolatile nucleation particle concentration and size was also shown to be dependent on the lubricant oil composition. The particle emissions were efficiently controlled with a partial filter or with partial filter + selective catalytic reduction (SCR) combination. The particle number removal efficiencies of the aftertreatment systems were over 95% for wet total particle number (>3nm) and over 85% for dry particle total number. Nevertheless, the aftertreatment systems’ efficiencies were around 50% for the soot-mode particles. The low-load nonvolatile nucleation particle emissions were also dependent on the engine load, speed, and fuel injection pressure. The low load particle number emissions followed the soot-core trade-off, similar to medium or high operating loads.

Implications:Idling and low-load diesel engine exhaust emissions affect harmfully the ambient air quality. The low-load particle number emissions are here shown to peak in the 10-nm size range for a modern off-road engine. The particles are electrically charged and nonvolatile and they originate from the combustion process. Tailpipe particle control by open channel filter can remove more than 85% of the nonvolatile 10-nm particles and about 50% of the soot-mode particles, while the fuel injection pressure increase can lead to particle number increase. The study provides a new viewpoint for low-load particle emissions and control.     

Redesign of a component based on ecodesign practices: environmental impact and cost reduction achievements

This paper focuses on ecodesign and its application in the footwear industry aiming to identify how the ecodesign can be applied to the redesign of a shoe component in order to minimize the environmental impact and simultaneously reduce costs of production and assembling. The factors that influence the use of ecodesign, the benefits and the difficulties were also investigated. A longitudinal case study was developed in a company that produces shoe stiffeners. The process of ecodesign implementation and the practices of ecodesign considered during the product redesign were analyzed. A cost reduction of about 10% was observed (in relation to the use of natural fibers and polymers in its composition-31% of biomass and 69% of fossil material). Toxic materials were completely eliminated and a reduction of energy consumption was also noticed (during the injection process). The main contributions of this study are: ecodesign constructs to be further researched the conjoint analysis of technological ability and market potential in a redesign project, and the requirements to gain managerial support for a redesign project.     

Influence of a chlor-alkali plant on the mercury contents of fungi

Significantly higher contents of mercury were found in fungi growing in the vicinity of a large Finnish chlor-alkali plant than in a control area. The highest concentrations (72–200 ppm dry wt) were found in $\text{Agaricus}$-species. The mercury contents in mycorrhizal fungi did not generally exceed the Finnish safety limit of 0.8 ppm.     

Effects of safety climate on safety norm violations: exploring the mediating role of attitudinal ambivalence toward personal protective equipment

Problem

Research on the role of organizational and psychosocial factors in influencing risk behaviors and the likelihood of injury at work showed that safety climate also has great impact on workers’ behavior. However, the mechanisms through which this impact operates are still partially unclear.

Method

In order to explore the role that attitudinal ambivalence toward wearing PPE might play in mediating the impact of safety climate on safety norm violations, a questionnaire was administered to 345 Italian workers.

Results

Three dimensions of safety climate (i.e., company safety concern, senior managers’ safety concern, supervisors’ attitudes towards safety) were found to be positively associated with the individual ambivalence level, whereas the fourth one (i.e., work pressure) was negatively correlated with it. In turn, low levels of ambivalence were associated with a lower tendency to break the safety norms, even though the perception of a good safety climate also maintained a direct effect on unsafe behaviors.

Impact on industry

Designers of training program for the prevention of work related injuries must pay great attention to the psycho-social factors (such as the effects of the safety climate perception by employees on their attitudes and behaviors), and include specific contents into the prevention programs in order to improve workers compliance with safety norms.     

Choosing classes for size projection matrix models

Projection matrix models are intensely used in ecology to model the dynamics of structured populations. When dealing with size-structured populations, there is no satisfactory algorithm to partition size into discrete classes. We show that the Vandermeer-Moloney algorithm for choosing classes is inconsistent with the Usher model, and systematically selects the finest classes. Considering that the matrix model is a discrete approximation of a continuous model, we define an approximation error as the sum of a distribution error (the difference between the discrete distribution and its continuous counterpart), and a sample error. The optimal partition of size into classes is the one that minimizes the approximation error. This method for choosing classes also shows that the choice of the class width cannot be disconnected from the choice of the time step. When applied to 520 trees of Dicorynia guianensis in French Guiana, this algorithm identified 8 classes of 11.4 cm in width, which is in agreement with the empirical choice of foresters.