Health And Safety Touches Lives

One career field touches nearly every life even though it usually remains invisible. It provides protection for anyone who's eaten in a restaurant, sipped from a water fountain, loaded boxes on a shipping dock or simply taken a breath. These careers fall into a broad category known as health and safety. They're essential jobs across the public and private sectors.

But even with such critical needs, too few people seek out the profession, and industry leaders hope to change that. "We're making increasing efforts to draw attention to who we are," said Nelson Fabian, executive director for the National Environmental Health Association. www.neha.org/ Outreach plans include giving career materials to students and talking with science teachers in elementary schools.

Members test the quality of public swimming pools, handle animal control and more. With such diverse duties, people are needed who have degrees in the physical sciences such as geology and biology, and others with backgrounds in business and organizational behavior. Many of the field's employees did not plan careers in health and safety, instead making a mid-career shift into the profession.

Jobs include roles in government, such as maintaining air or water quality or identifying disease outbreaks, and in business. They range from the practical to the intricate. Health professionals might identify a cluster of people with a specific illness, for example. Someone must go through public health records, determining whether people are getting sick in a particular way and, if so, how it happened and then preventing future outbreaks. Others work in business settings. A health and safety worker might train people to safely lift and load boxes. Another might help a grocery or restaurant chain limit the probability of an outbreak of food-borne illness.

According to the US Department of Labor, "Employment of occupational health and safety specialists and technicians is expected to grow about as fast as average for all occupations through 2014, reflecting a balance of continuing public demand for a safe and healthy work environment against the desire for smaller government and fewer regulations. Since the September 11, 2001 attacks, emergency preparedness has become a greater focus for the public and private

sectors, and for occupational health and safety specialists and technicians.

MN FutureWork note:

For information on a career as an industrial hygienist, including a list of colleges and universities offering industrial hygiene and related degrees, contact:

American Industrial Hygiene Association, 2700 Prosperity Ave., Suite

250, Fairfax, VA 22031. Internet: http://www.aiha.org/Content/AccessInfo/Students/students.htm

For information on the Certified Industrial Hygienist or Certified Associate Industrial Hygienist credential, contact:

American Board of Industrial Hygiene, 6015 West St. Joseph Hwy, Suite

102, Lansing, MI 48917. Internet: http://www.abih.org/

For more information on professions in safety, a comprehensive list of colleges and universities offering safety and related degrees, and applications for scholarships, contact:

American Society of Safety Engineers, 1800 E Oakton St, Des Plaines,

IL 60018. Internet: http://www.asse.org/

For more information on professions in safety, a list of programs in safety and related academic fields, and the Certified Safety Professional credential, contact:

Board of Certified Safety Professionals, 208 Burwash Ave, Savoy, IL

61874. Internet: http://www.bcsp.org/

For information on the Occupational Health and Safety Technologist and

Construction Health and Safety Technician credentials, contact:

Council on Certification of Health, Environmental, and Safety

Technologists, 208 Burwash Ave, Savoy, IL 61874. Internet: http://www.cchest.org/

Source: Dallas Morning News, Nobel Sprayberry, 10/8/7