Occupational Health and Safety Specialist Review, evaluate, and analyze work environments and design programs and procedures to control, eliminate, and prevent disease or injury caused by chemical, physical, and biological agents or ergonomic factors. May conduct inspections and enforce adherence to laws and regulations governing the health and safety of individuals. May be employed in the public or private sector.
Occupational Health and Safety Specialist is Also Know as
In different settings, Occupational Health and Safety Specialist is titled as
- Certified Industrial Hygienist (CIH)
- Chemical Hygiene Officer
- Environmental Health and Safety Officer
- Environmental, Health, and Safety Officer (EHS Officer)
- Industrial Hygienist
- Industrial Hygienist Consultant
- Safety Consultant
- Safety Management Consultant
- Safety Officer
- Safety Specialist
Education and Training of Occupational Health and Safety Specialist
Occupational Health and Safety Specialist is categorized in Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed
Experience Required for Occupational Health and Safety Specialist
A considerable amount of work-related skill, knowledge, or experience is needed for these occupations. For example, an accountant must complete four years of college and work for several years in accounting to be considered qualified.
Education Required for Occupational Health and Safety Specialist
Most of these occupations require a four-year bachelor's degree, but some do not.
Degrees Related to Occupational Health and Safety Specialist
- Bachelor in Occupational Safety and Health Technology/Technici
- Associate Degree Courses in Occupational Safety and Health Technology/Technici
- Masters Degree Courses in Occupational Safety and Health Technology/Technici
- Bachelor in Industrial Safety Technology/Technician
- Associate Degree Courses in Industrial Safety Technology/Technician
- Masters Degree Courses in Industrial Safety Technology/Technician
- Bachelor in Environmental Toxicology
- Associate Degree Courses in Environmental Toxicology
- Masters Degree Courses in Environmental Toxicology
- Bachelor in Environmental Health
- Associate Degree Courses in Environmental Health
- Masters Degree Courses in Environmental Health
- Bachelor in Occupational Health and Industrial Hygiene
- Associate Degree Courses in Occupational Health and Industrial Hygiene
- Masters Degree Courses in Occupational Health and Industrial Hygiene
- Bachelor in Patient Safety and Healthcare Quality
- Associate Degree Courses in Patient Safety and Healthcare Quality
- Masters Degree Courses in Patient Safety and Healthcare Quality
Training Required for Occupational Health and Safety Specialist
Employees in these occupations usually need several years of work-related experience, on-the-job training, and/or vocational training.
Related Ocuupations
Some Ocuupations related to Occupational Health and Safety Specialist in different industries are
- Occupational Health and Safety Technicians
- Health and Safety Engineers, Except Mining Safety Engineers and Inspectors
- Environmental Compliance Inspectors
- Environmental Science and Protection Technicians, Including Health
- Environmental Scientists and Specialists, Including Health
- Environmental Engineers
- Construction and Building Inspectors
- Environmental Engineering Technologists and Technicians
- Security Management Specialists
- Security Managers
- Agricultural Inspectors
- Transportation Vehicle, Equipment and Systems Inspectors, Except Aviation
- Nuclear Monitoring Technicians
- Aviation Inspectors
- First-Line Supervisors of Security Workers
- Government Property Inspectors and Investigators
- Preventive Medicine Physicians
- Information Security Engineers
- Fire Inspectors and Investigators
- Fire-Prevention and Protection Engineers
What Do Occupational Health and Safety Specialist do?
- Order suspension of activities that pose threats to workers' health or safety.
- Recommend measures to help protect workers from potentially hazardous work methods, processes, or materials.
- Investigate accidents to identify causes or to determine how such accidents might be prevented in the future.
- Investigate the adequacy of ventilation, exhaust equipment, lighting, or other conditions that could affect employee health, comfort, or performance.
- Develop or maintain hygiene programs, such as noise surveys, continuous atmosphere monitoring, ventilation surveys, or asbestos management plans.
- Inspect or evaluate workplace environments, equipment, or practices to ensure compliance with safety standards and government regulations.
- Collaborate with engineers or physicians to institute control or remedial measures for hazardous or potentially hazardous conditions or equipment.
- Conduct safety training or education programs and demonstrate the use of safety equipment.
- Provide new-employee health and safety orientations and develop materials for these presentations.
- Collect samples of dust, gases, vapors, or other potentially toxic materials for analysis.
- Investigate health-related complaints and inspect facilities to ensure that they comply with public health legislation and regulations.
- Coordinate "right-to-know" programs regarding hazardous chemicals or other substances.
- Maintain or update emergency response plans or procedures.
- Develop or maintain medical monitoring programs for employees.
- Inspect specified areas to ensure the presence of fire prevention equipment, safety equipment, or first-aid supplies.
- Conduct audits at hazardous waste sites or industrial sites or participate in hazardous waste site investigations.
- Collect samples of hazardous materials or arrange for sample collection.
- Maintain inventories of hazardous materials or hazardous wastes, using waste tracking systems to ensure that materials are handled properly.
- Prepare hazardous, radioactive, or mixed waste samples for transportation or storage by treating, compacting, packaging, and labeling them.
- Perform laboratory analyses or physical inspections of samples to detect disease or to assess purity or cleanliness.
- Analyze incident data to identify trends in injuries, illnesses, accidents, or other hazards.
Qualities of Good Occupational Health and Safety Specialist
- Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
- Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
- Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
- Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
- Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
- Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
- Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
- Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
- Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
- Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
- Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
- Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
- Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
- Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
- Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
- Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
- Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
- Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
- Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
- Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
- Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
- Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
- Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
- Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
- Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
- Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
- Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
- Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
- Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
- Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
- Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
- Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
- Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
- Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
- Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
- Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
- Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
- Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
- Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
- Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
- Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
- Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
- Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
- Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
- Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
- Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
- Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
- Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
- Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
- Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
- Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
- Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
Tools Used by Occupational Health and Safety Specialist
- Aerosol monitoring instruments
- Air flow monitors
- Air sampling impingers
- Air sampling pumps
- Anemometers
- Audiometers
- Barometers
- Benzene detector tubes
- Cascade impactors
- Charcoal absorption tubes
- Chemical detection tubes
- Chlorine monitors
- Colorimeters
- Combustible gas meters
- Compressed air guns
- Desktop computers
- Dissolved oxygen monitors
- Dry gas meters
- Emergency eye wash stations
- Emergency shower stations
- Fire extinguishers
- Flame ionization detectors FID
- Gamma radiation survey meters
- Gas chromatographs GC
- Gas leak testing equipment
- Geiger-Muller counters
- Gravimetric dust samplers
- Handheld thermometers
- High-volume air sampling pumps
- Humidity measurement equipment
- Laboratory balances
- Laboratory transfer pipettes
- Liquid leak testing equipment
- Low-volume air sampling pumps
- Lux or light meter
- Manometers
- Medical measuring tapes
- Microliter syringes
- Moisture meters
- Mold sampling equipment
- Multi-gas detectors
- Notebook computers
- Particle sensors
- Peristaltic pumps
- Personal computers
- Personal protective suits
- pH monitors
- Photometer
- Pressure meters
- Protective ear muffs
- Psychrometers
- Radiation monitoring instruments
- Refrigerant leak detectors
- Respirators
- Rotameters
- Safety goggles
- Safety shoes
- Sample vials
- Sampling trains
- Self-contained breathing apparatus
- Smoke generating tubes
- Soil testing kits
- Sorbent tubes
- Spirometers
- Turbidity monitors
- Ultraviolet UV digital meters
- Vibration measurement equipment
- Volumetric flasks
- Wet test meters
- X ray fluorescence XRF lead testing analyzers
Technology Skills required for Occupational Health and Safety Specialist
- Curtis Management Resources Training Management System
- Database software
- EcoLogic ADAM Indoor Air Quality and Analytical Data Management
- ESS Compliance Suite
- ImageWave MSDSFinder
- Mannus Compliance: EHS
- Medgate Enterprise EHS
- Microsoft Access
- Microsoft Active Server Pages ASP
- Microsoft Excel
- Microsoft Office software
- Microsoft Outlook
- Microsoft PowerPoint
- Microsoft Project
- Microsoft SharePoint
- Microsoft Windows
- Microsoft Word
- Primatech AUDITWorks
- Quality Systems Incorporated Safety Tagging System
- RAE Systems HazRAE
- Safety Software OSHALOG 300
- SAP software
- Web browser software
- Word processing software