Every field has its sets of established truths. But if you consider some of these so-called “truths” a little critically, you sometime find out they’re not true at all. It’s like the professional version of an urban myth. They’re in the air around us; we read about them and we heard smart people saying they’re true; we never stop to question if they really ARE true; and ultimately, we end up believing in them ourselves.

In the learning and development field, a classic myth is that you can get better training results by designing training to match your learner’s so-called learning styles. But I digress–we’ll get back to that in another article.

In occupational safety, there may be some myths out there too. And that’s why we had the conversation below with “safety mythologist” Carsten Busch. Put on your critical-thinking cap and your skeptical socks and give it a listen (or a read). And many thanks to Carsten for his sharing his time and knowledge with us.

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Risk management can be a powerful tool in occupational safety and health. And when applied strategically, it can help safety managers avoid serious injuries and most importantly fatalities at work.

That’s good to know, because as our risk management/safety management expert Pam Walaski explains in the interview below, the rates of occupational fatalities haven’t been going down as of late and we can do better.

In the interview below, Pam (who’s also done interviews with us on Risk Management and Safety Management Systems as well as Five Steps to Implementing Risk-Based Safety Approaches) explains the current and sad reality of occupational fatalities, explains why risk management is a tool we can use to combat these fatalities, and shows us how to get started.

As always, thanks to Pam.

Also, know we’ve included a free starter’s guide to using risk-based occupational safety management at the very bottom of this article. 

You can watch/listen to the discussion in the video below or click MORE to read a transcript (the guide’s down there, too).

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OSHA’s regulations cover employers in the 50 states plus a number of territories and jurisdictions (this includes but is not limited to the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico).

Many of those states or territories are covered by what’s known as federal OSHA. However, 22-27 states and/or territories have OSHA-approved state plans instead of being covered by federal OSHA. We’ve given a range because it depends on how you count them, something we’ll explain more for you below.

We’ll explain the state OSHA plans a little more in this article, which is a continuation of our OSHA Basics series of articles.

Also, a quick head’s up–we’ve included a free downloadable guide to OSHA inspections for you at the bottom of this article.

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Fall protection, including a fall protection harness, can be a lifesaver if other, higher-controls fail and a worker falls while working from heights.

But while it seems that having a fall protection harness arrest your fall is nothing but good, there’s a not-so-obvious hazard that many people aren’t aware of: fall protection harness suspension syndrome. And it can lead to pretty rapid death (even after the harness might have just saved your life by stopping your fall). Harness suspension syndrome is known by some other names as well, including harness suspension trauma, simply suspension trauma, or orthostatic intolerance.

We’ll explain more in the short article below, which includes a nice video illustration from our Fall Prevention & Protection training course.

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An important hazard that falls under the general bucket of fall prevention and protection is the “swing hazard” that can exist when wearing a vertical lifeline. We explain vertical lifeline swing hazard in this article (and include a video illustrating it from our online fall prevention & protection training course) and give you a tip for avoiding swing hazard out in the field.

We’ve also included a free fall prevention toolbox talk training checklist that you can download–just go to the bottom of this article to get the checklist. It addresses ladder safety, scaffolding safety, and roofing work safety.

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Every year falls are on the leading causes of injuries and most importantly fatalities at work. And that’s especially true in construction.

That’s why OSHA holds an annual Safety Stand Down for Fall Prevention in the Construction Industry. Each year at this time, they hold training sessions, provide free informational materials, get busy on social media, and otherwise try to raise awareness of the scope of the problem and how to prevent these fall-related injuries and fatalities.

As part of the Safety Stand Down 2019, Oregon OSHA joins federal OSHA, the other state OSHA plans, numerous safety organizations, and countless safety-minded individuals in trying to create some awareness of the risks and hazards the come under the fall prevention umbrella and in sharing knowledge about how to stay safe at work–from a simple slip, trip, or fall at ground level to working at the highest elevation.

Craig Hamelund, an education specialist with Oregon OSHA, was kind enough to share an hour talking to us recently, telling us about the fall-related injury and fatality statistics nationally and in Oregon, highlight hazards and controls, telling us a little about what Oregon OSHA (as well as the Pacific Northwest OHSA Education Center and other related safety professionals) are doing here in Oregon, and sharing information about falls and fall prevention that are useful no matter where you live. We thank Craig and Oregon OSHA for his time and we encourage you to seek out or hold your own Safety Stand Down event this year.

We’ve transcribed the discussion and you can read that by clicking the MORE button. Or, just watch the video, which is immediately below. Also, know that that the bottom of this article, we’ve provided a free Fall Prevention Toolbox Talk Checklist based on an OSHA Fall Prevention Training Guide–it’s yours for free and it offers tips on toolbox talks for ladder safety, scaffolding safety, and roofing work safety.

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We think that OSHA publication 3666, Fall Prevention Training Guide: A Lesson Plan for Employers, is a helpful resource, and we’ve even created a fall prevention toolbox talk checklist to supplement the OSHA guide. You can download that checklist from the bottom of this article.

In this article, we’re going to highlight some of the major points that OSHA makes in the Fall Prevention Training Guide. You’ll see the guide addresses risk (and controls) related to ladder safety, scaffolding safety, and roof work safety.

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In this article, we’re going to introduce three special issues for women in occupational safety and health: PPE, getting women into leadership roles, and violence at the workplace. We’ll give a general introduction to both (thanks to work from the ASSP’s Women in Safety Excellence, or WISE, common interest group) and we’ll zero in on some problematic issues related to women and PPE.

We’ll be speaking with Abby Ferri, an ASSP member and a member of WISE who’s leading up the WISE effort to highlight problems with PPE for women and try to get some improvements. In future articles, we hope to talk with other WISE members about the issues related to workplace violence and leadership roles for women.

We’d like to thank Abby Ferri for her time in putting this interview together. You can listen to the interview in the video below or, if you’d prefer, we also typed up a transcript that’s available below the video/audio.

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