Compliance Stuff

  It’s often a long road from identifying an issue, creating a consensus and then designing a solution. That seems to be the case with the philosophy called  total worker health ( TWH). It was created in 2006 by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to “expand the science, education and training around a more holistic approach to worker well-being.” “TWH is defined as policies, programs and practices that integrate protection from work-related safety and health hazards with promotion of injury and illness prevention efforts to advance worker well-being,” according to  Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Center for Work, Health & Well-Being,  one of the 10 centers of excellence created by NIOSH to implement this doctrine. Since its creation, many companies have adopted this expanded vision of safety and created programs to address it. By 2023, 58% of small firms and 94% of large companies in the U.S. had a wellness program. I...

  Maryland Occupational Safety and Health (MOSH) issued the final version of its Heat Stress Standards, which became effective on September 30, 2024 , becoming the f i rst state on the East Coast to adopt a heat standard and joining others such as California, Colorado, Minnesota, Oregon, and Washington in doing so. The standards take a sweeping approach to regulating heat injury and illness issues, requiring employers to develop heat-related illness prevention and management plans, monitor temperatures at worksites, train employees, and implement other measures such as breaks and acclimatization programs. MOSH’s  new heat standards   apply to all “employer[s] with employees whose employment activities, indoor or outdoor, e xpose employees to a heat index in the area where the employee is working that equals or exceeds  80 degrees Fahrenheit. ” This effectively covers anybody working outside in the summer as well as many indoor places of employment without air cond...