Links to other health and safety sites

There are lots of useful resources for health and safety activists, researchers and/or professionals. These are listed by those categories and topics; happy to have suggestions for others. The list will be larger, with time.

Health and safety activists

  • 28april.org, run by the U.K. Hazards group, provides international coverage of events to honour workers killed and injured on the job on that date (called the Day of Mourning in Canada — where it started — and Workers Memorial Day in other countries)
  • the chemicals database designed by workers for workers, ChemHAT (Chemical Hazard and Alternatives Toolbox) that lets you find less toxic options for some chemicals and the hazards of many
  • Hazards (UK group with a lot of resources and a regular magazine)
  • National COSH Network is the co-ordinating organisation of Committees on Occupational Safety and Health or COSH groups, advocacy organisations which have been around the U.S. since the 1970s
  • Mark Catlin’s Youtube channel of health and safety videos and films, many of them historical (and some Canadian)

Work shouldn’t be dangerous. We should be making things, not making orphans. Our strategy will use the full union rep toolbox – from negotiation, to representation, to action – to organise for decent, safe and healthy work.

Sharon Burrow

ITUC general secretary

Researchers/health and safety professionals

  • American Public Health Association’s Occupational Health and Safety Section, which has developed and promotes an important list of policies (e.g., about breast cancer)
  • European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) provides research, tools and information about and for health and safety in European Union countries, in many languages about a wide variety of topics
  • National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), the U.S. national health and safety research agency does research and workplace investigations called Health Hazard Evaluations (HHEs)
  • New Solutions, a journal about environmental and occupational health that covers issues inside and outside the U.S.
  • the Pump Handle (“A water cooler for the public health crowd”) provides stories and comment about U.S. health and safety issues

Chemicals

  • Coming Clean is a U.S. collaborative focused on environmental health issues that often have an occupational health component
  • the Massachusetts Toxics Use Reduction Institute (TURI) provides links for those looking for help to research the environmental, health and safety hazards of chemicals
  • Safer Chemicals, Safer Families in the U.S. advocates for public protection and regulation
  • the U.S. Healthy Building Network has a chemical hazard database, Pharos, and the new public Data Commons project

Construction

  • CPWR: The Center for Construction Research and Training was created by the U.S. Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO and provides training, research and practical solutions to health and safety hazards on all kinds of construction sites
  • elCOSH — the Electronic Library of Construction Occupational Safety and Health — is provided and maintained by CPWR and made available via NIOSH and has materials about construction health and safety available in a variety of languages
  • for building materials, check out the Healthy Building Network Pharos database and their resources