NIOSH to Lend Expertise at AIHce 2010
Representatives from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health will be ubiquitous next week in Denver, lending their expertise and adding insight for AIHce attendees' edification in any number of ways, presenting professional development courses, podium sessions, roundtable discussions, EHS crossover programs, and more.
NIOSH Director John Howard, M.D., MPH, JD, LLM, will be most visible, presenting the Jeffrey S. Lee Lecture on Monday, May 24, from 12:30 - 1:30 p.m., and then teaming with OSHA chief Dr. David Michaels to co-headline Wednesday morning's General Session in the Wells Fargo Theatre, 8 - 9 a.m.. Howard's topic Monday will be "The Future of Work and the Aging Work Force," in which he will discuss how work in the 21st Century may not resemble work as we currently know it. There will be changes in workplace hazards due to new technologies, changes in employment patterns due to the rise of contingent work, and changes in the face of workers given the demographics of the aging workforce, all of which presents challenges to those in safety and health. Howard will use the platform to address how to surmount these challenges. He will continue to address current and future OEHS issues in Wednesday's session with Michaels. Lisa M. Brosseau, ScD, CIH, AIHce co-chair, will moderate the session, titled "New Frontiers in Science and Practice," and the audience will have the opportunity to twitter questions during the presentation (use the hashtag #aihcesession). Afterward, Howard and Michaels will participate in an Ask the Expert session at 10 a.m. in Room 401 of the convention center.
Other NIOSH representatives will either moderate or present programs every day of the conference. To list just a few of these, on Monday, a representative from Cincinnati NIOSH will moderate the podium session "Noise: Measure the Hazard, Then Implement and Evaluate Controls," from 10:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. in Room 207. During those same hours, staff from the same NIOSH office will host a roundtable discussion titled "Using H1N1 Influenza to Understand Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Control" in Room 605. Later that afternoon, representatives from NIOSH in Morgantown, W.Va., and Cincinnati will present an Emerging Issues session called "NIOSH-DREAM (Direct Reading Exposure Assessment Methods), from 2 - 4 p.m. in Room 203. This presentation, based on a 2008 workshop NIOSH hosted on the use of direct reading methods (DRMs) as tools for detecting and measuring worker exposure to inhalation hazards, will provide an update on current agency activities and identify examples of ways in which DRMs are currently used in workplaces. The session will include a progress report on NIOSH DRM research and allow registrants to interact with NIOSH scientists.
Elsewhere in the convention center (Room 605), also on Monday, a NIOSH representative from Washington, D.C., will moderate a roundtable discussion on "Green Construction Practices: Integrating Occupational Safety and Health" from 2 - 5:30 p.m., at the same time a rep from Pittsburgh NIOSH is moderating a podium session on respiratory protection in Room 109.
On Tuesday, scientists from Cincinnati NIOSH will host a roundtable discussion titled "Ask the Expert: An Update of the NIOSH Nanotechnology Program" from 10:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. Happening concurrently, from 11 a.m. - noon in Room 210, NIOSH and partners from industry, labor, and academia will present "A Role for You -- Implementing the NORA Strategic Plans," focused on the agency's National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA). This will be followed by a luncheon discussion on the same topic in the Expo Hall A, from 12:30 - 1:30 p.m.
On Wednesday, from noon to 1 p.m., members of the AIHA Technical Committee and NIOSH staff will host the “Tech Talks” lunch discussion, which will focus on current issues concerning research and technical content. Seating for all luncheon discussions is available on a first-come, first-served basis.