5. Integrated Approaches to Research:
Developing an Integrated
Research Model
The design process for emerging technologies must
consider an array of safety and health areas before
and after deployment. An integrated rather than a
specific approach to conducting occupational and
environmental health research is needed. This approach
would integrate innovative engineering controls
with prospective analysis to protect researchers and
workers during the research and development phase.
In manufacturing, the approach would integrate
an intrinsic toxicity-based occupational exposure
assessment of the raw materials, the intermediate
byproducts, and emissions with life cycle assessment
and analysis of the environmental impacts. The
approach also would address potential exposure
routes to other workers and to the community, and
it would include an analysis of the economic and
health benefits to people and society from the use
of the new technology. In addition, the safety and
health impact of new potential uses or misuse of the
technology after its deployment must be anticipated
so that injury or illness prevention strategies can be
implemented.
An iterative risk assessment of new technologies
would benefit from partnerships between interested
parties. Parties such as government, industry, labor
unions, insurance providers, and nongovernmental
organizations (NGOs) could partner in order to
share current data, new information, risks, and
benefits identified through prospective analysis.
Partnerships between government agencies and
private sector entities are few, but can be achieved.
An example is a research partnership between
the National Institute of Environmental Health
Sciences and the American Chemistry Council,
wherein toxicological research is jointly prioritized
and funded. Finding ways to form and sustain
partnerships between parties potentially impacted
by new technology is needed.
Ensuring public trust in the development of new
technologies is a crucial research responsibility.
Numerous examples exist of the harm that occurs
when this trust is violated. Public trust in the nuclear
power industry dwindled after the Three Mile Island
malfunction and Chernobyl explosion. Following
the Chernobyl incident in 1986, the biotechnology
industry took notice and embraced risk assessment,
risk management, and a culture of expertise, which
made transparency rather than secrecy a priority
[Fleising 2002]. The industry allocated resources
to these priorities, emphasized social responsibility,
and responded to critical incidents to dispel public
uncertainty quickly. The biotechnology industry’s
responsiveness has eased a 15-year emergence of its
technology in the United States.
Research Opportunities and
Responsibilities
Links with Other Priority Areas
An injury and disease prevention approach
necessitates the development of specific innovative
technologies to reduce or eliminate persistent
occupational illnesses and injuries. This approach
is consistent with several other NORA priority areas
that relate to disease and injury.
Since unintended consequences in safety and health
associated with new and emerging technologies
may not be anticipated, partnerships for identifying
research needs are desirable among researchers in
NORA areas concerned with the rapid changes
facing the workforce. These areas include
Organization of Work, Special Populations, Social and Economic Consequences, and Control Technology and Personal Protective Equipment.
Research should be extended into specific
occupational environments such as the construction
[Transportation Research Board 2003], agricultural
[US Department of Agriculture 2003], and service
industries. Examples of possible research topics are:
- The integrity of new materials in building
construction (structural and fire safety);
- Safer fertilizers and insecticides for food
production or lawn and garden care;
- Mechanical devices and power tools to reduce
ergonomic stress to workers;
- Novel protective devices against non-ionizing
electromagnetic radiation.
Other NORA priority areas are linked to many
recommendations in this paper. The chapter on
the identification and surveillance of emerging
technologies relates to Surveillance Research
Methods, the chapter on prospective analysis relates
to the Risk Assessment Methods priority, and the
chapter regarding inherently safer design relates
to the Control Technology and Personal Protective
Equipment priority.
Government Funding
Government-funded research programs can have
an impact on emerging technologies and should be
a priority. An example of a beneficial technology
that, through innovation, became more beneficial
is the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
(DARPA) support of research in the late 1970s and
early 1980s that led to the chemical synthesis of
DNA [Sprackland 2002]. This synthesis allowed
researchers to bypass the need to produce DNA
through direct replication, and as a result, they were
able to generate much higher yields of DNA.
By 2002, a project funded by the National
Institutes of Health (NIH) and DARPA had shown
the promise of reducing time for the sequencing
of genetic information of a person’s DNA from
2 to 4 years to 24 hours [University of Houston
2002]. This new technology included the use of a
genetically engineered enzyme, DNA polymerase,
which sequenced bases in a DNA strand that
could be read by a computer. This is an emerging
area called bioinformatics in which genomics and
computer technology have merged.
Coordinated Effort
A coordinated effort including government, industry,
and academia is needed to optimally provide for
developing and implementing inherently safer
designs for more benign technologies. Government
research agencies can assist firms or industries to
undertake TOAs in the adoption or development of
new technologies. Both industry and government
must be technologically literate to ensure that
the TOAs are sophisticated and comprehensive.
Promotion of integrated research for occupational
and environmental health in federal and state
governmental agencies is needed to improve criteria
development and guidelines for reducing toxic
releases, injuries, and diseases through inherently
safer and cleaner technologies [Zwetslot and Ashford
2003]. Furthermore, operations of key disciplines
and functions such as engineering, occupational
safety, industrial hygiene, and environmental
practice need to be joined.
Early Reporting of Effects
New information, such as toxicological data on
materials used in the manufacture of the technology,
would trigger an updated prospective analysis.
Because of the complexity of the emerging technology
process, there is a gap in the community’s ability
to recognize adverse consequences of emerging
technologies in their initial stages of use. Techniques
are needed to evaluate the emergence of new injuries
or diseases that are associated with the product or
processes of emerging technologies.
Historically, a Health Hazard Evaluation technique
has been used to spot such problems. This technique
is an after-the-fact approach to signal unique
diseases or hazards and depends on requests to
evaluate mystery sicknesses or potential hazards
related with a new product. The requests come from
employers, employees, or government agencies.
Still, this approach lacks a focus on emerging or
benign technologies.
Many innovations in biotechnology and nanotechnology
are expected to create new opportunities
and may even offer new options in the prevention
and diagnosis of diseases. Researchers need to
examine areas of interest such as biotechnology or
to investigate opportunities for using information
technology or electronics and communications to
monitor and inspect workplace programs.
Precautionary Principle
Utilization of the Precautionary Principle could
be a potential approach to emerging technologies
analysis. The approach was conceived in Europe and
adopted as policy by virtue of the 1992 Treaty on
European Union [CEC 2000]. The Precautionary
Principle was defined by the United Nations
Conference on Environment and Development,
held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, as follows: "[w]here
there are threats of serious or irreversible damage,
scientific uncertainty shall not be used to postpone
cost-effective measures to prevent environmental
degradation" [UNEP 1992]. While other definitions
exist, the foregoing is widely accepted. In brief,
the overall aim of the Precautionary Principle
is to provide an approach to acting in the face of
uncertainty [Grandjean 2003]. The Precautionary
Principle has to date been associated primarily
with preventing harm from environmental hazards,
e.g., preventing the introduction into commerce of
hazardous substances. However, the Principle could
also be applied to the prevention of occupational
injuries [Pless 2003] and workplace health problems,
if adopted in the future.
Advocates of the Precautionary Principle see it as an
alternative to the use of risk assessment by which to
predicate risk management actions, often a lengthy,
litigious, and costly process [Tickner 2003; Tickner
et al. 2003]. It remains a challenge to apply the
Precautionary Principle to emerging technologies
analysis of U.S. workers’ safety and health issues.
Conclusion
The anticipation of occupational safety and health
hazards has been a tenet for safety and hygiene
professionals for some time. This report provides an
approach for putting this principle into action. It
attempts to provide the foundation for identifying,
forecasting, and avoiding hazards with technologies
as they emerge into widespread use. It also addresses
the opportunities for applying emerging technologies
to improve occupational safety and health when
they replace hazardous existing technologies. This
approach can link heavy investment with inherently
safer designs to protect the safety and health of
workers.
The challenge for identifying emerging technologies
that can bring benefits or pose potential risks to
occupational safety and health is both simple and
difficult. It is simple to find new technologies
that are emerging as economically viable, but the
difficulty lies in choosing the appropriate subset of
these technologies for surveillance and later analysis.
The challenge is to define the minimal set of data
needed to make this choice.
The identification of emerging technologies that
warrant occupational safety and health interest
leads to prospective analyses of the potential risks or
benefits of these technologies. Occupational safety
and health professionals in the United States are
familiar with risk assessment, and it can be adapted
for use in anticipating hazards as well as benefits.
This adaptation involves acting on knowledge as it
accrues about the hazards of the technology.
It also involves moving the process from a regulatory
to a knowledge-driven perspective in order to
expedite changes toward inherently safer options.
Conversely, a new technology may be safer than a
current technology, which can expand the market
for the technology into the occupational safety and
health niche. The analysis adds a prospective step to
the risk assessment approach by asking "what if" and
"what could" to the team assembled for the analysis.
The challenge is for multidisciplinary commitment
to teamwork in this process.
Firms developing emerging technologies may more
readily accept inherently safer design principles since
they have yet to invest in the production process or
market acceptance of a product. Fundamentally,
inherently safer design aims to avoid hazards rather
than control them, and this approach is essential
in selecting designs that are relatively benign for
occupational safety and health. This approach can
also assist in identifying technologies that could
be deployed as they emerge from other sectors.
A challenge is to gain universal acceptance of
principles for inherently safer designs so they can be
used by developers of new technologies.
The identification, analysis, and avoidance of
hazards as well as identifying the opportunities for
improving occupational safety and health associated
with emerging technologies requires an integrated
approach. This integration requires the occupational
safety and health professional’s involvement with the
technology developers and entrepreneurs through
the life cycle of new technologies. Indeed, the whole
analysis team must continuously interact in order to
transform the emerging technology into an inherently
safer technology. The challenge is to bring the various
stakeholders together in a continuous interaction so
that the emerging technology can provide for the
improved safety and health of working people.
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