Welcome to the Office of Health & Safety
The Office of Health and Safety establishes worker safety
and health requirements and expectations for the Department
to ensure protection of workers from the hazards associated
with Department operations. Our Office conducts health studies
to determine worker and public health effects from exposure
to hazardous materials associated with Department operations
and supports international health studies and programs. We
implement medical surveillance and screening programs for
current and former workers and support the Department of Labor
in the implementation of the Energy Employees Occupational
Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA). Additionally,
our Office provides assistance to Headquarters and field elements
in implementation of policy and resolving worker safety and
health issues.
Current Worker Programs
Occupational
and Environmental Medicine
The DOE Occupational
and Environmental Medicine (OEM) Program provides policy,
guidance, and occupational medicine expert consultation to
the more than 30 DOE
Site Occupational Medicine Programs. The Site Occupational
Medicine Programs serve the more than 140,000 current DOE
Federal and Contractor workers nationwide. To help ensure
these workers are at their most fit to perform the United
States' most important science, energy. and nuclear work,
the site occupational medicine programs conduct regular and
as-needed medical evaluations to ensure any work exposures
are not affecting their health, encourage Wellness
and Safety through Health Promotion and Educational activities
including pandemic
planning, illness
and injury prevention programs, and inter-collegial
communications among the more than 500 healthcare providers
in the DOE Complex. One important health monitoring program
is related to the cold-warriors who produced the nuclear weapons
during the first 4 decades of the nuclear age, the beryllium-affected
workers. Beryllium was used to build the nuclear weapons,
and exposure to dust containing beryllium compounds, caused
some workers to develop health problems. DOE, in collaboration
with the Department of Labor, provides these brave men and
women with special
workers' compensation. Workers, who find themselves with
personal or professional stressors that could affect their
work, are encouraged to participate in Employee
Assistance Programs at each of the DOE sites. When workers
leave DOE employment, they are eligible to have health monitoring
through the Former
Worker Medical Screening Program.
Worker
Health and Safety Policy
DOE Worker Safety and Health Policies and Regulations are
developed and implemented to ensure the DOE workforce conducts
work safety and productively. Important major regulations
covering workers are 10
CFR 851 Worker Safety and Health Program and 10
CFR 850 Chronic Beryllium Disease Prevention Program.
Other regulations such as 10
CFR 707 Workplace Substance Abuse Program are targeted
toward ensuring that nuclear weapons workers are not impaired
on the job. A widely diverse professional group including
Ph.D.-level industrial hygienists, nuclear and radiological
safety professionals, along with industrial safety experts
develop and implement the important DOE safety and health
regulations.
Health Studies: Domestic
The health status of DOE's current workers is tracked through
the Illness and Injury Prevention Program; a program of health
surveillance designed to study trends and patterns of injury
or illness among current workers and make recommendations
on possible interventions if a trend or pattern indicating
a potential work-induced health issue is identified. Through
retrospective studies of the records of the more than 600,000
people who have worked in the nuclear energy field since the
Manhattan Project began, DOE's Department of Health and Human
Services partners - NIOSH,
ATSDR, and NCEH - help identify whether certain exposures
or jobs in the past may have affected workers or members of
communities surrounding DOE over the long term.
Health Studies: International
DOE engages in the conduct of international
health studies that provide new knowledge and information
about the human response to ionizing radiation in the workplace
or people exposed in communities as a result of nuclear accidents.
Many thousands of people, who survived the instantaneous radiation
exposures from the nuclear weapons explosions over Nagasaki
and Hiroshima, were exposed to high levels of radiation over
a short time. Other countries such as Russia where nuclear
weapons workers built atomic weapons had historically higher
levels of radiation exposure than DOE workers. And, residents
of the Marshall Islands were exposed to fallout from nuclear
weapons tests in the South Pacific. DOE Office of Health and
Safety supports studies of the Japanese
A-Bomb survivors, the Russian
nuclear weapons workers at Mayak and in the community around
Mayak, and provides healthcare and environmental monitoring
to the surviving people of the Marshall
Islands. The International Studies help the national and
international radiation standards setting organizations better
understand exposure effects and how to set radiation exposure
standards.
Voluntary
Protection Program DOE assists organizations around
the complex to undergo evaluation to obtain Voluntary Protection
Program (VPP) status. VPP Star status is conferred up organizations
that meet the highest standards of safety and health performance.
Former Worker Programs
When workers retire or leave employment
with DOE, they all become eligible to have medical screening
through the Former
Worker Medical Screening Program to determine if they might
have a latent health effect from work done at DOE during their
careers. Persons who worked with radiation sources and develop
certain cancers may be eligible for special workers compensation.
Persons whose work at DOE results in them being diagnosed as
having silicosis, chronic beryllium disease, or asbestosis may
also be eligible for special workers compensation under the
Energy Employees
Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA).
Patricia R. Worthington, Director, Office of Health
and Safety
Bill R. McArthur, Acting Deputy Director, Office of
Health and Safety
This page was last updated on April 08, 2009
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