Greetings from the New Executive Director
For those of you who do not yet know me, I am Chris Trahan Cain. Although I have worked with CPWR for two decades - the last five years as Deputy Director - this is my first UPDATE.
After twenty-six years of service at CPWR, Executive Director Pete Stafford has retired, and CPWR's Board of Directors has asked me to assume his duties.
Pete was the first full-time employee of CPWR, and during his tenure he transformed a fledgling construction safety and health startup into a building industry institution respected by practitioners and academics alike. It was Pete who recruited me to join the CPWR staff back in 1998, and he proved to be a remarkable supervisor and mentor in the years that followed.
I'm pleased to report that Pete will be staying on board as a consultant to ensure a smooth transition, and to help me launch CPWR into its future. That future starts today with CPWR's new course, Foundations for Safety Leadership, that OSHA has adopted as an elective for the OSHA 30-Hour outreach course. Read on to learn more about this and other new safety and health resources and research!
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New OSHA-30 Elective: Foundations for Safety Leadership
 In an effort to meet a long-standing need for safety leadership skills instruction for foremen and lead workers, with input from experienced OSHA outreach trainers, construction workers, and numerous safety and health professionals, we have created a new training course - Foundations for Safety Leadership (FSL). OSHA's Directorate of Training and Education has approved the 2.5-hour FSL course as an elective in the 30-hour outreach training program beginning January 1, 2017. The course can can be used as part of an OSHA 30-hour class or on its own, and is available on our website or from the OSHA Outreach Training Program.
To learn more, join us for a free webinar introducing the FSL program on January 19 at 2pm. CLICK TO REGISTER
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New NIOSH Webinar Series Announced
Insurance and Workers Compensation for Construction - Untangling the Mysteries
We all want to improve safety and health on construction sites. Injury, illness and other data can help us as we make decisions, but not all data are easily available. There are ready sources of data relevant to construction safety and health from, for example, CPWR and BLS. Another source is the insurance industry, however, many whose work could benefit from these data may not know how to obtain, interpret, and use insurance data. Starting this month, the NIOSH Office of Construction Safety and Health is introducing a new webinar series that will explain how construction projects and contractors are insured, how the insurance industry can influence safety and health, and how researchers can tap into this important resource.
The first webinar in the series, Setting the Stage: Insuring the Construction Industry -- General Contractors vs. Sub-Contractors -- What's the Difference? is scheduled for Thursday, January 19th at 11:00am (ET), with guest presenter William B. Noonan, Executive Vice President, Willis Towers Watson. CLICK TO REGISTER
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TOOLS FOR SAFETY AND HEALTH
Hazard Alert: Electrical Safety (for non-electricians)
Electrocution injuries kill hundreds of construction workers every year -- most of them non-electricians. CPWR's updated Hazard Alert on the topic is an excellent tool for reviewing electrical hazards with workers in every trade. For hard copies of the pocket brochures, email CPWR; this and other Hazard Alerts can also be downloaded as 8x11 flyers. This is just one of many topics in the popular series: for a complete selection, CLICK HERE.
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RESEARCH NEWS
Test Bench System Measures Handle Vibration in Hammer Drills
 Workers can be exposed to high levels of hand vibration when drilling into concrete or rock using hammer drills, exposures that can cause Hand-Arm Vibration Syndrome. A CPWR-supported research team has designed a robotic test bench system to measure the vibration generated by different tool models -- and to examine the impact of factors such as bit design, drilling force, bit sharpness, drill type, and vibration dampening. A new test bench system for hammer drills: Validation for handle vibration appears in the International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics; you can read a summary of the key findings HERE.
Chris Trahan Cain, CIH
Executive Director
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Thursday, January 19th @ 11:00am (ET): Setting the Stage: Insuring the Construction Industry -- General Contractors vs. Sub-Contractors -- What's the Difference? CLICK TO REGISTER Thursday, January 19th @ 2pm (ET): Foundations for Safety Leadership. CLICK TO REGISTER.
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Ashley Schoenfisch, Hester Lipscomb, Clayton Sinyai and Darrin Adams, January 2017. Effectiveness of OSHA Outreach Training on carpenters' work-related injury rates, Washington State 2000-2008. American Journal of Industrial Medicine
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BAC Craft Committees Continue to Guide Masonry r2p Partnership Safety & Health Priorities. BAC Journal, Issue 4, 2016
SAVE: Ergonomics Training for Masonry Apprentices. BAC Journal, Issue 4, 2016
Keeping Aging Workers Safe. Safety + Health, 12/20/2016
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