Sarah and Emma go to Washington...well, sort of...

Last night Emma D. and I attended the Northern California Chapter of AIHA (American Industrial Hygiene Association) to meet our professional development requirement for class. You might be thinking that this sounds like an *unusual* meeting for HPM students to attend, but we were drawn by the speaker: Aaron Trippler, AIHA Director of Government Affairs. And to be fair, although we do not use it in OUR everyday academic lives, Industrial Hygiene (IH) plays an important role in workplace health and safety and covers workers' rights and other policy-related issues of interest to us wonkly-types. (And as it turns out, there are a lot of jobs available in this industry; to find out more, visit: http://www.aiha-ncs.org/.)

Trippler, who was extremely animated and an excellent speaker (which DOES make a big difference at long meetings!) addressed a crowd of IHers and described the current political climate in DC, especially as it related to important issues in IH, such as baryllium, asbestos, combustable dust, and other ergonomics and workplace safety issues. Perhaps the most important information gleaned from this talk was that, due to the nature of Washington around election season (i.e., kind of a slow mess regarding passing new legislation, especially when it deals with environmental health and safety regulation, which tends not to be high-visibility), the states are taking up a lot of environmental health and safety issues and running with them.

What kind of issues? (See, I knew you were going to ask that question...) Right now ergonomics is entering the scene and making it onto the agenda of more and more state legislatures. Also, regulations for things like combustible dust (Google: Georgia sugar factory explosion) are becoming important since states can often quickly enact safety legislation to protect citizens.

But this meeting (to us!) was so much more than an update about the status of IH in DC; Emma and I also gained more insight into the world of health policy and management. We were able to see how a professional association and interest group (a very well organized one at that!) interacts with legislators and states but also with its own members in different chapters around the nation. And, for an evening, we were able to step off the HPM "beaten path" and meet some interesting and influential public servants and other IH professionals, whom we often overlook because they are behind-the-scenes, but they are the ones keeping us safe at work and in public places :).

Addendum: Perhaps the most amusing part of the evening was when a hotel worker came into the meeting to close the window and in doing so, had to use a ladder. Immediately, members of AIHA began shouting out ladder safety information and two members jumped up to hold the ladder for the worker. While definitely funny, it was also great to see people so passionate about their work!