OSHA takes another step toward heat and infectious disease rules

By Jess McCluer, Senior Vice President, Safety and Regulatory NGFA

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) Advisory Committee on Construction Safety and Health unanimously recommended that OSHA proceed with its two separate rulemakings: 1) Heat Injury and Illness Prevention and 2) Infectious Diseases. Both potential rules were previously the subject of OSHA Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act (SBREFA) panels (Heat Injury and Illness Prevention in 2023 and Infectious Diseases in 2014). They would apply to private and public sector employers with employees exposed to heat hazards or infectious diseases in the workplace.

The regulatory agenda states that OSHA is “examining regulatory alternatives for control measures to protect employees from infectious disease exposures to pathogens that can cause significant disease.” The agency is considering long-standing infectious disease hazards like tuberculosis and measles as well as new and emerging infectious diseases such as COVID-19 and pandemic influenza. According to OSHA, control measures for infectious diseases might be necessary in workplaces such as healthcare, emergency response, and “other occupational settings where employees can be at increased risk of exposure to potentially infectious people.” The new standard is likely to address critical aspects, such as airborne and droplet precautions, engineering control measures, PPE, respiratory protection, hazard assessment and control, training and education, recordkeeping, and reporting.

As with other OSHA standards, many of the requirements for the new infectious disease standard may already be addressed in a company’s COVID-19 policy document, but there will almost certainly be new documentation and similar requirements. Return to contents May 3, 2024 National Grain and Feed Association 5 OSHA’s National Advisory Committee on Safety and Health (NACOSH) is expected to endorse similar recommendations. This moves OSHA one step closer to publishing proposed rules on these two separate issues. Last year the NACOSH Heat Injury and Illness Prevention task force’s recommendations for the Heat Injury and Illness Prevention standard were approved by the full committee and suggested to OSHA to include in the proposal.