New Booklet Raises Awareness About Health Hazards in Construction

Construction safety professionals are familiar with the long-running Focus Four safety program pioneered by OSHA which has been an effective vehicle to encourage action on four key fatal injury hazards in construction. A new publication by the American Industrial Hygiene Association called, “Focus Four for Health: an Initiative for the Construction Industry,” provides for the first time a companion piece to allow the same approach to be applied to four widely prevalent construction health hazards: manual material handling, high noise, air contaminants, and high temperatures.

The guidance booklet, available as a free download at www.focusfourconstructionhealth.org, was written with construction employers in mind. It provides a one-stop resource that brings the reader up to speed on the importance of health hazards and then provides practical steps that contractors can use to successfully address these hazards.

This new publication provides a great opportunity for safety and health professionals to partner and network with construction organizations to improve the health of U.S. and Canadian construction workers.