Unit IV Article critique, health and medical assignment help
Choose a journal article from the CSU Online Library that deals with any of the material presented in the first four units of this course. The article itself must be more than one page in length. The EBSCO Database (Business Source Complete) is a good source of journals for safety related articles. If you have a specific area of interest that is covered later in the course, you may ask for professor approval.
our Article Critique must be two to four pages in length, double spaced. All sources used, including the textbook, must be referenced; paraphrased and quoted material must have accompanying citations.
Some suggested topics include
the organizational role of the safety professional,
the “business” of safety, hazard avoidance models,
current regulatory trends in occupational safety and health,
the safety professional’s role in disaster preparedness,
workplace standards, and
current occupational health issues.
The Article Critique must include the following components: a brief introduction to the article, a summary and analysis of the key points in the article, whether or not the article supports the concepts as presented in the textbook , and a summary of the article’s conclusions and your own opinions. Information about accessing the Blackboard Grading Rubric for this assignment is provided below.
article- Page i GAO-17-178 OHSA Training Letter 1 Background
3
OSHA’s Outreach Training Program Reflects Attributes of a Well
–
Designed Training Program
8
Outreach Training Providers Use Automated and Manual
Processes and Controls to Document Students’ Successful
Course Completion
12
OSHA Oversees Training Providers by Collecting Data and
Investigating Complaints, and Has Taken Some Steps to
Assess Program Results
16
Agency Comments
24
Appendix I
GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments
26
Tables
Table 1: Extent to Which the Design of OSHA’s Outreach Training
Program Reflects GAO Identified Attributes for a Well
–
Designed Trai
ning Program
9
Table 2: Selected OSHA Requirements for the 10-hour
Construction Outreach Training Course
11
Table 3: 11 Performance Elements OSHA Uses to Assess the
Education Centers’ Performance, Fiscal Year 2015
17
Figures
Figure 1: Growth in OSHA’s Outreach Training Program
– Number
of Workers Trained From Fiscal Year 2000 to 2016
7
Figure 2: OSHA Outreach Training Participants by Course Type,
Fiscal Year 2016
8
Figure 3: Course Completion Card Processing for OSHA’s In-
person and Online Outreach Training
13
Figure
4: Results of OSHA’s Monitoring of the Education Centers
by Performance Element, Fiscal Year 2015
19
Figure 5: OSHA Targets for Number of Workers Trained through
Its Outreach Training Program and Actual Number of
Workers Trained, Fiscal Years 2011-2016
22
Figure 6: OSHA’s Requirements for Assessing Outreach Training
Compared to Kirkpatrick Levels of Evaluation
23
Contents
Page
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Abbreviations
DOL
Department of Labor
Education Centers
OSHA Training Institute Education Centers
IAC ET
International Association for Continuing Education
and Training
O SHA
Occupational Safety and Health Administration
O SH Ac t
Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970
This is a work of the U.
S. government and is not subject to copyright protection in the
United States. The published product may be reproduced and distributed in its entirety
without further permission from GAO. However, because this work may contain
copyrighted images or other m
aterial, permission from the copyright holder may be
necessary if you wish to reproduce this material separately.
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OHSA Training
441 G St. N.W.
Washington, DC 20548
February 7, 2017
The Honorable Tim Walberg
Chairman
Subcommittee on
Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions
Committee on Education and the Workforce
House of Representatives
Dear Mr. Chairman:
In 2014, approximately 4,800 workers died on the job, and employers
reported about 3 million nonfatal work
-related injuries, according to data
collected by the Department of Labor (DOL). DOL’
s Occupational Safety
and Health Administration (OSHA) is responsible for protecting the safety
and health of the nation’
s workers under the Occupational Safety and
Health
Act of 1970 (OSH Act).
1
Ensuring that workers are properly trained
in recognizing and avoiding workplace hazards is an important
component in establishing and maintaining a safe and healthy workplace.
In fiscal year 2016, approximately 900,000 workers wer
e trained in job
hazard recognition and avoidance through OSHA
’s Outreach Training
Program.
2
In-person Outreach Training is provided to workers by
Outreach trainers, safety professionals who have taken train-the-trainer
courses at OSHA Training Institute E
ducation Centers (Education
Centers), which are a national network of nonprofit organizations
authorized by OSHA to deliver various types of occupational safety and
health training. Since 2001, OSHA has also allowed Outreach Training
courses to be delivered online through authorized vendors.
Participation
in the program has grown substantially over time and although most
workers take the training in-person, workers are increasingly taking the
courses online.
You asked us to review OSHA
’s administration of t
he
program, including the in-person and online training, and to determine
how OSHA assesses the results of the program.
This report examines (1) the extent to which OSHA
’s Outreach Training
Program aligns with leading practices in designing an effective tr
aining
1
Pub. L. No. 91-596, 84 Stat. 1590 (codified as amended at 29 U.S.C. §§ 553, 651-78).
2
OSHA
’s Outreach Training Program is designed for workers, but according to OSHA
officials, individuals trained can include workers, employers, safety professionals,
supervisors, and students in high school and college. In this report, we use the term
“workers
” to refer collectively to all of these groups.
Letter
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GAO-
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OHSA Training
program, (2) the process OSHA uses to document students
’ successful
completion of the training and the extent to which internal controls are in
place to assure completion is accurately documented, and (3) how OSHA
oversees training providers and ass
esses the results of the program.
To address all of our objectives, we interviewed OSHA officials;
representatives from all nine online training providers; and
representatives from five Education Centers, selected because they had
among the highest number of Outreach Training participants of all 27
Education Centers in fiscal year 2015. Together, the 5 Education Centers
accounted for 46 percent of workers trained in-person that year.
3
We also
observed three Outreach Training courses
—two in-person and one
online. Our observations from these training courses are intended to be
illustrative, and are not generalizable. To determine the extent to which
the design of the Outreach Training Program reflects leading practices,
we compared the information obtained thr
ough interviews with OSHA
officials and agency documentation to practices identified in GAO
’s guide
for assessing training and federal internal control standards.
4
While
GAO
’s guide for assessing training is intended to help federal agencies
review
training and development programs for their employees, the
attributes of effective training programs identified in the guide are derived
from sources that are generally applicable to training and can be used to
review a particular agency program or activit
y. To examine the process
for documenting successful course completion, we reviewed (1) OSHA
’s
policies and procedures for issuing course completion cards and (2) other
information obtained from OSHA, the online training providers, and the
five Education C
enters. We also analyzed the latest OSHA data available
at the time of our review from fiscal years 2012 through 2016 on the
timeframes for processing requests from online training providers for
3
There are currently 27 Education Centers.
4
GAO,
Human Capital: A Guide for Assessing Strategic Training and Development Efforts
in the Federal Government
, GAO
-04-546G
(Washington, D.C.: Mar. 1, 2004) and GAO,
Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government
, GAO
-14-704G
, (Washington,
D.C.:
Sept. 10, 2014). GAO
’s guide for assessing training summarizes attributes of
effective training programs related to four components of the training process: (1)
planning/front
-end analysis, (2) design/development, (3) implementation, and (4)
evaluation. G
AO obtained the information in this guide through consultations with
government officials and experts in the private sector, academia, and nonprofit
organizations; examinations of laws and regulations related to training and development in
the federal government; and a review of the literature on training and development issues.
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OHSA Training
course completion cards.
5
We assessed the reliability of OSHA
’s card
processing data by (1) performing electronic testing of required data
elements, (2) reviewing existing information about the data and the
system that produced them, and (3) interviewing agency officials
knowledgeable about the data. Based on these reviews, we determined
that the data were sufficiently reliable for our purposes. To determine how
OSHA oversees Outreach Training providers and assesses the results of
the program, we reviewed OSHA
’s reporting requirements for training
providers, monitori
ng procedures, and agency monitoring reports. We
also compared OSHA
’s efforts to training evaluation practices in GAO
’s
training guide (
GAO
-04-546G
) and federal internal control standards.
We conducted this performance audit from February 2016 to February
2017 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing
standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to
obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable
basis for
our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe
that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings
and conclusions based on our audit objectives.
OSHA is the federal agency responsible for
administering the
Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, as amended (OSH Act),
which was enacted to assure safe and healthful working conditions for the
nation’
s workers.
6
As authorized by the act, OSHA sets and enforces
occupational safety and health
standards, which are regulations that set
forth specific safety and health requirements with which covered
5
We did not analyze data on how long it takes for the Education Centers to process
course completion cards for workers who take the training in person because the
Education Center
s use different information systems to process the cards and no single
data source exists that would allow us to analyze the data.
6
Pub. L. No. 91-596, 84 Stat. 1590 (codified as amended at 29 U.S.C. §§ 553, 651-678).
Under the OSH Act, states may choose
to operate their own occupational safety and
health programs in accordance with state plans approved by OSHA.
Background
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OHSA Training
employers must comply.
7
Among its other responsibilities under the OSH
Act, OSHA is also required to provide for the establishment and
supervision of training programs to help workers and employers
recognize, avoid, and prevent workplace safety and health hazards.
8
The Outreach Training Program is the agency
’s primary way to offer
training for workers in the basics of occupational safety and health,
according to OSHA.
9
Outreach Training includes voluntary 10-hour and
30-hour safety courses designed to provide basic hazard awareness
training for workers in construction, maritime, and general industry, and a
15-hour course for workers at disaster sites.
The training covers how to
recognize and prevent hazards on a jobsite, workers
’ rights, employers
’
responsibilities, and how to file a complaint. The 30-hour courses are
intended to provide more in-depth training to workers who have some
safety responsibil
ity. Workers that successfully complete an OSHA
Outreach Training Program course receive a student course completion
card. The student course completion cards in Construction, General
Industry, and Disaster Site do not have an expiration date; however, the
Maritime Outreach Training student course completion cards expire 5
years after completing the training.
While OSHA does not require workers to take its Outreach Training
courses, depending on their jobs and where the workers are located, they
may be subj
ect to other requirements to show an OSHA course
7
The OSH Act generally covers private sector employers and requires most federal
agencies to maintain occupational safety and health programs that are consistent with
OSHA standards. States that operate their own programs may cover private sector
employers and must cover state and local government employers. These states may set
and enforce their own standards, provided they are at least as effect
ive as OSHA
’s . OSHA
enforces its occupational safety and health standards (referred to in this report as “OS H A
standards
”) by conducting inspections in response to complaints or on its own initiative,
and may issue citations to employers it finds have viol
ated the OSH Act or OSHA
regulations.
8
29 U.S.C. § 670(c).
9
In addition to the Outreach Training Program, OSHA also engages in other efforts to
provide training to workers. For example, OSHA administers the Susan Harwood Training
Grants Program, which provides competitive grants to nonprofit organizations to provide
training and education programs for employers and workers on the recognition,
avoidance, and prevention of workplace safety and health hazards. OSHA also provides
training for federal and state compliance officers through its OSHA Training Institute;
private sector workers and federal workers from agencies other than OSHA may receive
training from the OSHA Training Institute when space is available.
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completion card to demonstrate they completed the training.
10
For
example, some states, municipalities, unions, and employers may require
workers to take an OSHA Outreach Training course as a condition of
employment for certain jobs, and OSHA maintains a list of states and
municipalities that have such a requirement. According to OSHA
’s list,
seven states (Connecticut, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nevada, New
Hampshire, New York,
and Rhode Island), and three munic
ipalities
( Miam i
-Dade County, New York City, and Philadelphia) require certain
workers to take some form of OSHA Outreach Training or an equivalent
training. For example, all of these states and municipalities require certain
workers on public construction
projects to take a 10-hour construction
safety course. Some, including Nevada and Philadelphia, also require this
training for workers on private construction projects.
Outreach Training courses are delivered by OSHA
-authorized external
training providers that receive no funding from OSHA, but instead, rely on
tuition and fees from training participants to cover the cost of the training.
The types of training providers include Education Centers, which train
Outreach t
rainers to deliver in-person Outreach Training courses to
workers, and online training providers.
•
Education Centers:
OSHA has nonfinancial cooperative agreements
with 27 Education Centers
–which are typically universities
–to provide
occupational safety and health training to workers and employers on
behalf of OSHA.
11
The Education Centers have two main roles under
the Outreach Training Program: (1) conduct in-person train-the-trainer
courses to qualified individuals interested in becoming authorized
Outreach trainers; and (2) act as an authorized training organization
for the Outreach trainers by monitoring Outreach trainers through
records audits and training observations and by processing course
completion cards that Outreach trainers request on behalf of the
workers who take their courses. OSHA selected the Education
Centers through a formal competitive application process. Successful
10
Although some OSHA standards require cover
ed employers to provide certain types of
training for their workers, OSHA Outreach Training does not fulfill the training
requirements found in OSHA standards.
11
In addition to their Outreach Training Program responsibilities, the Education Centers
are responsible for delivering other occupational safety and health courses to workers and
employers on behalf of OSHA. The other offerings include courses on OSHA standards
and special topics, such as recordkeeping, machine guarding, and fall arrest system
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