NIOSH Program Portfolio

Health Hazard Evaluations

Inputs: Partnerships & Stakeholders

Partnerships

The following persons can requests an HHE and are the Program’s primary customers

• An employer
• A union representing the affected employees for purposes of collective bargaining
• An employee representing at least two other employees at the workplace in question
• A single employee, if the worksite of concern has three or fewer employees
• A federal agency safety and health committee (at least one-half of the members must be in agreement)
• Federal agency employees not covered by a certified safety and health committee
• The Secretary of Labor, in the case of a federal agency

NIOSH is specifically authorized to conduct HHEs in the following types of workplaces:

• Workplaces covered by the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970. This includes private sector workplaces, unless occupational safety and health issues fall under the jurisdiction of another agency (e.g., railroads, airlines).
• Workplaces covered by the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977.
• Federal agencies including civilian employees of the military services.

Employees can request confidentiality, i.e., their name will not be revealed to the employer. Requests for technical assistance from requesters and workplaces not included in the Occupational Safety and Health Act are conducted in the same manner as an HHE except that the HHE Program has no legal recourse should the employer decline to permit all or part of the evaluation. Requests for HHEs can be made using the HHE request form, by letter, or electronically using the form available on the NIOSH website.

For statistical purposes, the HHE Program classifies its customers as employees, unions, management, government, and other. Figure 1 shows how the distribution of customers has changed historically. Increasingly, HHE requests are from individual employees rather than union representatives.

Figure 1. HHE Requests by Requester

Although the primary customers of the NIOSH HHE Program are the employees and employers who submit requests for investigations, employers and employees in non-investigated facilities are also customers. Workers in similar workplaces or workers using the same substance but in a different process receive added protection once the information relating health effects to exposure becomes widely disseminated and other employers adopt HHE Program recommendations in their facilities.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration at the national and local levels also is a customer of the HHE Program. Nationally, OSHA uses data generated by the HHE program to support rulemaking. Local OSHA offices often refer employees or employers to the HHE Program or request technical assistance from the HHE Program as an offshoot of their own investigations. For example, a local OSHA office in North Carolina asked the HHE Program to investigate bromopropane exposure in furniture manufacturing. OSHA did not have a standard for bromopropane, its investigators did not have experience in measuring it, and it did not have the capacity to assess the health complaints. The HHE Program provided recommendations to reduce exposures. HHE Program staff, networking with NIOSH researchers in other programs, helped initiate a research agenda designed to better characterize the bromopropane exposure hazard and to evaluate the utility of a biomarker for assessing exposure.

Other government agencies at the federal, state, and local level also are customers. In some cases agency managers ask the HHE Program to address problems in their own facilities. For example, in 1993 the U.S. Forest Service asked for an HHE regarding potential reproductive and other health effects related to exposure of their employees to tree-marking paint. Based on environmental sampling to measure exposure levels and assessment of health effects, HHE Program investigators concluded that reported health effects were likely caused by chronic low–level exposures to mixed solvents. They recommended that the Forest Service use a high-solid, low-solvent, waterborne paint. After implementing this recommendation, in 1998 the Forest Service asked the HHE Program to evaluate exposures associated with use of a newly–formulated paint. The evaluation demonstrated that hydrocarbon exposures, most likely the causal agent with regard to acute symptoms, were either below the limit of detection or were at trace concentrations. Based on their findings, the HHE investigators assisted the Forest Service in developing a formulation list for waterborne paint and the Forest Service used that information to develop bid specifications for paint purchases. Not only were the technical contributions of the HHE helpful in lowering exposure levels, but involvement of the HHE Program also contributed to improved labor-management relations.

In other cases, agencies ask the HHE Program to help them carry out their mandate. For example, in 2004 a state health agency asked the HHE Program to investigate health effects of solvent exposures at a manufacturing facility. The  HHE report released in March 2008 shared the findings from this investigation with policy makers involved in setting occupational exposure limits and guidelines. These HHE activities and outcomes are only a few of the many situations in which other agencies have sought assistance from the HHE Program, often because of the HHE Program’s unique expertise and resources or because of a need for a nonbiased, scientifically credible evaluation.

Stakeholders

In addition to the specific customers noted above, many NIOSH stakeholders have a vested interest in the results of HHEs including organized labor, industry trade associations, and insurance companies. These stakeholders have informally told HHE Program managers and staff that they rely on the HHE Program’s thoroughness and objectivity to propose solutions to problems that affect their clientele.

NIOSH Program:

Health Hazard Evaluations

Program Description
Inputs
• National Research Agenda (NORA)
• NIOSH Strategic Goals
• Partnerships & Stakeholders
• NIOSH Contacts
Activities
• NIOSH Research Projects
Outputs
• Publications
• Topics
• Products
• Outreach
• Research to Practice
Outcomes
Review & Evaluation
• Program Review
• National Academies Evaluation