Occupational Safety and Health Training Project

Details

• Personal Author:
  Sommerich CM
• Description:
  Our Occupational Safety and Health Training program is designed to satisfy the Master of Science degree program requirements of the Graduate Program of Ohio State University's Integrated Systems Engineering Department, while meeting the needs of engineers and others who wish to work, do research, or pursue further education in occupational safety and ergonomics. The program includes required courses in occupational biomechanics, cognitive engineering, occupational health, industrial accident prevention and control, human error and systems failure, statistics and experimental design, a research practicum, an applied practicum in safety and ergonomics, and choice in electives, including courses in epidemiology, safety in construction and civil engineering, risk assessment, design, and reliability. During the five year period from July 2016 through June 2021, seven students were supported by the training grant and five of them graduated (along with two that were supported in a prior period, but graduated in this period). Two trainees are in progress. Seven more students who were not supported by the training grant also pursued the same course of study and graduated during the period. The program has an excellent track record of attracting people from groups that are traditionally underrepresented in occupational safety, including women, individuals from ethnic minorities, and individuals with learning disabilities. The program has a good track record of placement of graduates. Students graduating in the 2016-2021 time period are working in the occupational health and safety field. Examples include one graduate who is working as a Human Systems Engineer (Sonalysts, working on simulators to aid surgeons treating injured soldiers), a Program Assistant (VA Medical Center, Indianapolis), and a Sr. User Experience Researcher (Newell, product safety). The program's impact on workers comes not only through the work of our graduates, but through the safety practicum that each student performs, and indirectly or longer term through the students' thesis research or culminating project. Safety practicums this period engaged students in performing ergonomic job analyses (Rockwell Automation, Milwaukee, WI), developing an ergonomics risk assessment checklist for craft work and performing anthropometric assessments to provide data for redesign of manipulator handles (Idaho National Labs, Idaho Falls, ID), assessing jobs to identify return to work challenges and opportunities (Lowe's, Columbus, OH), and designing a new hand tool for a new assembly operation (Tesla, Reno, NV). The NIOSH Training Project Grant has allowed us to expand the number of students we have been able to train, to expand our programmatic offering beyond human factors and ergonomics, and to offer a well-rounded, well-conceived program in safety and ergonomics that exposes students to faculty from several departments and colleges at OSU, and numerous expert practitioners in and outside of the Central Ohio area. It has also afforded us the means to support the students' annual attendance at a professional conference (e.g. the Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society). The students have also been involved in dissemination of research, through contributions to conference presentations and writing papers for publication in peer-reviewed journals. Conference presentations included Annual Meetings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (Lavender et al., 2019b; Ngo et al., 2016; Palmer et al., 2017) and the IISE 2020 Annual Conference & Expo (virtual). Journal articles appeared in Applied Ergonomics (Amini Pay et al., 2021; Keester and Sommerich, 2017; Lavender et al., 2020). Another manuscript has been accepted for publication in Work. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Biomechanical Phenomena Education Ergonomics Occupational Health Safety Staff Development
• Keywords:
  Biomechanics Human Factors Engineering Occupational Health Occupational Safety Training
• Series:
  Grant Final Reports
• Publisher:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Final Grant Report
• Place as Subject:
  Ohio ; OSHA Region 5
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  OEP - Office of Extramural Programs
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-7
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20064639
• NTIS Accession Number:
  PB2022-100413
• Citation:
  Atlanta, GA: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, T03-OH-008847, 2021 Sep; :1-7
• Contact Point Address:
  Carolyn M. Sommerich, PhD, CPE, Project Director, Department of Integrated Systems Engineering, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210
• Email:
  Sommerich.1@osu.edu
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2021
• Performing Organization:
  Ohio State University
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  20060701
• Source Full Name:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• End Date:
  20260630
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:59f177a5bba005353e8e7e1162d58a6cad691392059a3a8aaa59b95ecc0ad00865eae2bfdf3dbedfafe9ceec5a2539e94075552ad29087e1dcbd398013d63bd5
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/219103/cdc_219103_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 148.59 KB ]