ASSE, OSHA, NIOSH support Fall Prevention Campaign

In order to provide additional tools to prevent worker injuries and fatalities in the construction industry, the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) is joining with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to support a new Fall Prevention Campaign.

The NIOSH National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA) Construction Sector developed this campaign.

The national campaign to raise awareness about how to prevent falls in construction is also supported by state governments, private industries, trade associations, academia and professional and labor organizations. It focuses on providing prevention information and training materials on three major types of falls:  from roofs, from ladders and from scaffolds.

Ron Sokol, ASSE member who also represents ASSE on the NIOSH NORA Construction Sector and is president and CEO of the Safety Council-Texas City, said occupational safety, health and environmental (SH&E) professionals work with construction workers and employers on providing the safest workplaces possible as well as with personal protection equipment (PPE) aimed at protecting those workers in their environments, and, much more. This new effort is intended to provide additional tools.

To help construction workers stay safe, SH&E professionals also use consensus standards, includingSafety Requirements for Self-Retracting Devices for Personal Fall Arrest & Rescue Systems, Scaffolding Safety Requirements and Emergency Procedures for Construction and Demolition Sites.

Additionally, ASSE’s largest practice specialty is the Construction Practice Specialty group, which shares best practices, produces a newsletter, meets annually and sponsors construction-related sessions at ASSE’s annual professional development conference in an effort to promote construction safety.

OSHA’s new fall prevention web page has detailed information in English and Spanish, along with the Fall Prevention Campaign website from the Center for Construction Research and Training with information from industry, nonprofit and academic sources. In addition, Sokol said OSHA will translate the fall prevention literature into seven additional languages for broader distribution.

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The campaign information and resources will continually be updated on their respective websites.