IOHA NEWSLETTERGLOBAL EXPOSURE MANAGER
International OccupationalHygiene Association

Edited by Dr Thomas P Fuller: IOHA president
e-mail: tpfuller1@gmail.com

AIHA continues to offer COVID-9 resources to keep
workers and communities healthy and safe
Sue Marchesee-mail: smarchese@aiha.org
The American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) – the association
for scientists and professionals committed to preserving and ensuring occupational and environmental health and safety (OEHS) in theworkplace and community – has announced that the second edition ofThe Role of the Industrial Hygienist in a Pandemic is now available forFREE. A revision of the 2006 version, this book provides resources, information and tools to advise and assist general workers, healthcare workers, and management to protect workers in the case of a pandemic.
The guide identifies hazards, risk groups, and recommended controls;
offers a communication plan; describes the impact of a flu pandemic
on organisations; and lists key resources for further information.
The publication of the second edition of this book comes on theheels of the revisions to the AIHA’s complete library of Back to Work
Safely (BTWS) guidelines. AIHA’s Back to Work Safely Guidelines, 2ndEdition, is now available for small to mid-size businesses in 27 sectors.
The free guidance documents, available in both English and Spanish,provide clear and actionable steps towards the safe operations of avariety of workplaces through prevention, early detection, and control
of COVID-19.
In its efforts to help businesses and communities operate safely
amidst the pandemic, the AIHA recently held a Healthy Schools
Townhall Webinar, featuring experts in the occupational environment health and safety community. The webinar is available to viewfor free on the Synergist Webinars Archives website. We invite you toshare the link to the AIHA’s Healthy Schools Townhall Webinar with213

Vol. 27 No. 6 November/December 2021

your members via e-mail, your organisation’s newsletter, and/or socialchannels. Please use hashtag #AIHAhealthyschools in the subject line.

Apply for AIHA’s Future Leaders Institute programme
Ready to focus on strengthening your leadership skills? Apply toparticipate in the Future Leaders Institute (FLI) programme! The programme is designed to help you leverage your strengths and learn thebest practices that make effective managers and leaders.
From strategic decision-making to building networking skills,
completing the FLI programme will bring you closer to meeting yourpersonal and professional goals. The Stephen C. Davis Future Leaders
Institute Memorial Grant provides up to USD 1 000 in travel assistanceto a maximum of four participants to attend the FLI. To be eligible,
attendees must live or work outside of the United States. If you haveany questions, please contact Thursa La, AIHA’s senior manager forLocal Sections and Foundation.

Occupational Health Southern Africa

www.occhealth.co.za

IOHA NEWSLETTERGLOBAL EXPOSURE MANAGER
International Occupational
Hygiene Association

New secretary for the Norwegian Occupational
Hygiene AssociationHans Thore Smedbold: NOHA president
e-mail: hans.thore.smedbold@yrkeshygiene.no
From 1 December 2021, Knut Grove (certified industrial hygienist)
will become the new secretary for the Norwegian Occupational
Hygiene Association (NOHA). He has more than 30 years of occupational hygiene and management experience within the working
environment, mainly from Occupational Health Services and theNorwegian Labour Inspection Authority. His competence andexperience will be invaluable to our association.
The main work for our new secretary will be to support theactivities initiated by the association and to actively foster thedevelopment of the profession in Norway. A good dialogue andinteraction with the president, the board, the faculty, the localchapters of the association, and all individual members of the association are important. The secretary plays a key role in follow-up of
our conferences (one-day spring conference, annual conference(two days with PDCs and three conference days)), webinars andour member newsletter, Yrkeshygienikeren.

“I want to contribute to the realisation of the purpose ofthe association; to stimulate exchange of experience andcompetence development among the members, to create
an understanding of the importance of occupational
hygiene in the society and to contribute to a better workingenvironment”, he said, and continued: “A key requirement
to achieve this is to revitalise, strengthen and adapt asystematic competence building for professional hygienists in Norway, for both new and experienced professional
hygienists. Here it is important to have an active dialogue
both internally in the association and with other stakeholders in Norway. It is also important for a small association
as NOHA, to strengthen the relation to IOHA, the other OHassociations, Occupational Hygiene Training Association(OHTA), Workplace Health Without Borders (WHWB), The
World Health Oganization, and the International Labour
Organization”.
Our profession plays a vital role in our society, focusing on safeguarding workforces. To strengthen our association, so that wecan better enable our members to do their work, is essential. Inchanging times, our competence is more important than ever,as we contribute our expertise to identify, map and assess risks.
Based on this, we must focus on preventive measures rather thantrying to repair damage that has already occurred.

Knut Grove, new secretary of the NorwegianOccupational Hygiene Association

For more information, visit https://www.nyf.no or e-mail theassociation at fagsekretar@nyf.no.

Photograph: Jan Henning Aase, Studio1 Fotografene AS

Occupational Health Southern Africa

www.occhealth.co.za

Vol. 27 No. 6 November/December 2021

214

IOHA NEWSLETTERGLOBAL EXPOSURE MANAGER
International OccupationalHygiene Association

BOHS general ventilation tool briefingKevin Bampton
e-mail: kevin.bampton@bohs.org

Development of the tool
The British Occupational Hygiene Society (BOHS) is a scientific charity – the professional body for occupational hygiene scientists andthe Chartered Society for Worker Health Protection. The tool wasdeveloped in partnership with society members who are ventilation
experts in the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). The developmentof all society materials is funded by the society and is freely available
to the general public.
In Spring 2021, a range of businesses and members of the generalpublic approached BOHS, having identified a gap between the technical guidance available to ventilation specialists and the informationneeded by managers undertaking COVID-19 risk assessments. TheBOHS COVID-19 Expert Group, which comprises industry and academic
experts in health exposure control and monitoring, agreed that it was
important to support the development of non-expert resources tohelp address this gap.
The COVID-19 Expert Group is a voluntary body, convened under
the supervision of the board of the BOHS and the Chartered Societyfor Worker Health Protection, and includes experts from the Instituteof Occupational Medicine, the British Medical Association (BMA), theInstitute of Local Exhaust Ventilation (CIBSE), and industry health andsafety leaders. The approach was supplemented by technical feedback
from ventilation specialists who are members of the enforcement
and science divisions of the HSE. The tools were designed to work
hand-in-hand with guidance and practical inspection findings fromthe HSE. It was felt that there were several related, but different, issues
arising out of COVID-19 and ventilation. These included questions of
why and how ventilation is linked to COVID-19 risk management, whyand how CO2 monitoring can help with ventilation management, andThe toolA series of frequently asked questions (FAQs) was launched in June
2021 (COVID-19-and-Ventilation-FAQs-v2.pdf (bohs.org)). As the promotion of CO2 monitors was rolled out, a simple fact sheet on CO2 andCOVID was produced and released in July 2021 (CO2-Monitoring-andCovid-19-Some-Basics.pdf (bohs.org)). Finally, the development of anapp-style tool for the assessment of general ventilation and COVID wasdeveloped and shared (Ventilation Tool – Breathe Freely). The tool ishosted on the BOHS respiratory health hub.

Feedback and roll out of the toolFeedback was sought from 14 health professional bodies, including
the Royal College of Nursing, the British Medical Association, theInstitute of Paramedics, and the Royal College of Speech and Language
Therapists. The tool was also shared amongst a network of school headteachers. In addition, it was tested by ventilation specialists in the HSE.
The BOHS and consultees are seeking to promote the tool as widely
as possible; it is also linked to the HSE’s website.
For additional information, please contact Prof. Kevin Bampton,
CEO of BOHS, at kevin.bampton@bohs.org.

how to tell, quickly and easily, if ventilation is a problem in workplaces.

215

Vol. 27 No. 6 November/December 2021

Occupational Health Southern Africa

www.occhealth.co.za