December 16, 2002—US Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao recently announced the selection of 15 individuals from industry, academia, labor, legal, and the medical professions to form the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) National Advisory Committee on Ergonomics (NACE). Secretary Chao said that she is confident the committee will help OSHA reduce ergonomic-related injuries and illnesses suffered by thousands of workers each year.
Among committee members are two professors of medicine, an attorney, consultants specializing in occupational health, management directors, a professor of industrial engineering, safety and health specialists, a construction firm CEO, an associate professor in public health, and a registered nurse with joint faculty appointments in colleges of nursing and public health.
The NACE is chartered initially for two years and is expected to meet two to four times annually beginning in 2003. The committee will advise the Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health on a number of issues related to OSHA’s four-pronged approach to reducing ergonomic-related injuries in the workplace: guidelines, research, outreach and assistance, and enforcement.
OSHA announced last April the agency’s strategy to reduce ergonomic injuries. Since then, three industries—nursing homes, retail grocery stories, and poultry processing—have stepped forward to work with the agency to create the first sets of guidelines. The agency expects to publish the final nursing home guidelines and draft guidelines for the others in the near future. For more information or brief biographical sketches of OSHA’s NACE members, visit OSHA.
