On April 9, the American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) announced it’s launching a campaign to restore staff and funding to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently reorganized several agencies, removing NIOSH from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and combining NIOSH with the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health (OASH), Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), and Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) to create a new Administration for a Healthy America (AHA).
Planned reductions to NIOSH personnel will leave “only a fraction of its original workforce to manage select programs,” AIHA CEO Lawrence Sloan said in a statement. “The proposed reductions effectively end the institute’s ability to conduct essential research and provide guidance.”
The AIHA announced its campaign to restore NIOSH to its membership via e-mail and a post on the association’s LinkedIn account. The group encouraged professionals in occupational environment, health, and safety (OEHS) and allied fields to contact their elected representatives about the importance of maintaining NIOSH staffing and programs.
The group compiled a backgrounder discussing the importance of NIOSH and its programs to help OEHS professionals customize their messages to their representatives. The AIHA also is partnering with the American Society of Safety Professionals (ASSP), the National Safety Council (NSC), and other members of the Intersociety Forum, a coalition of more than 20 EHS associations, to present a unified response against the planned cuts.
On April 2, the ASSP urged members of Congress to carefully review the HHS decision to move NIOSH under the newly created AHA. The ASSP asked representatives and senators to take steps to preserve NIOSH’s role in safeguarding the health and safety of American workers.
The AIHA also shared an April 4 letter from more than 100 members of Congress to President Donald J. Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, calling on them to reverse the staff terminations at NIOSH.
NIOSH and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) were both created by the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970. OSHA sets and enforces workplace safety and health standards, provides education and training, and offers compliance assistance. NIOSH performs and supports occupational health and safety research, developing interventions to help reduce worker injuries, illnesses, and fatalities.
Programs at NIOSH have included:
- Developing and publishing “criteria documents” that recommend requirements that OSHA could include in new workplace safety and health standards;
- Performing health hazard evaluations (HHEs) to help employers address worker illnesses; and
- Testing and certifying respirators for use in U.S. workplaces.
The institute also administers the Fire Fighter Fatality Investigation and Prevention Program (FFFIPP), the National Firefighter Registry for Cancer, and the World Trade Center (WTC) Health Program, which monitors health conditions among 9/11 responders and survivors.
“For those who don’t think the cost of NIOSH’s $363 million annual budget is worth the investment in preventing workplace illnesses and injuries, this study estimated just three NIOSH case studies (with a cost of $5.1 million) have resulted in an annual economic value of $338 million to over $1.2 billion,” AIHA President Nicole Greeson said.