Stakeholders offer suggestions on assessing State Plan effectiveness
Washington – Several stakeholders at a recent meeting voiced reservations that draft measures assessing State Plan program effectiveness focus heavily on enforcement.
OSHA has been working on a new way to assess whether state-run occupational safety and health programs are “at least as effective” as the federal agency in the wake of extensive reviews that found some of the 27 State Plan states may not be performing well.
During a June 25 meeting in Washington, stakeholders weighed in on 15 draft measures released by OSHA and provided suggestions for additional measures. Many stakeholders expressed hope that OSHA would create measures that go beyond enforcement to include compliance assistance and worker inclusion efforts. They also stressed to officials that OSHA should use a combination of leading and lagging indicators in the assessments.
OSHA hopes to have new assessment measures implemented by the end of next year, according to assistant OSHA administrator Jordan Barab.
Comments on how OSHA can better assess State Plan effectiveness are due July 6.
Post a comment to this article
Safety+Health welcomes comments that promote respectful dialogue. Please stay on topic. Comments that contain personal attacks, profanity or abusive language – or those aggressively promoting products or services – will be removed. We reserve the right to determine which comments violate our comment policy. (Anonymous comments are welcome; merely skip the “name” field in the comment box. An email address is required but will not be included with your comment.)