April is Volunteer Month – Thank You to ACGIH Volunteers!

To our strong leaders who volunteer their valuable time and efforts to help ACGIH continue protecting OEHS professionals worldwide – Thank You! Without your hard work and expertise in providing the knowledge and scientific data necessary in the OEHS industry, ACGIH could not persevere its mission:

To advance occupational and environmental health globally by providing educational programs, scientific data, and technical knowledge to Occupational and Environmental Health and Safety (OEHS) professionals in the interest of workers and the public.

We hope to maintain our bonded relationship and continue achieving our goals of helping OEHS professionals globally.

In appreciation,
Phillip Rauscher MPH, CIH, CSP
ACGIH Interim Executive Director

Moving on to Next Step of TLV Development Process

Thank you for your assistance during the first comment period of the TLV Development Process. Now that it’s over, the first ratification process will occur next month. Those changes will then be posted online using Data Hub in June. Then this entire process will repeat for the second half of the year. The second comment period will run from July 1st – Sept 30th. Again, Industry professionals will have the opportunity to provide their comments for draft Documentation on the Notice of Intended Changes (NIC) and Notice of Intent to Establish (NIE) lists. All substances that are on the NIC currently will have the opportunity to be adopted by the Board of Directors this summer and are available on our website via Data Hub and in the Publications Store. The second ratification will then occur in November, with the final updates done in December.

Call for Awards & Elections Nominations

Call for 2023 Awards Nominations

The First Comment Period Ends March 31st

The first comment period of the TLV development process will be closing March 31st. Industry professionals have the opportunity to provide comments twice per year for draft Documentation on the Notice of Intended Changes (NIC) and Notice of Intent to Establish (NIE) lists. All substances that are on the NIC currently will have the opportunity to be adopted by the Board of Directors this summer and are available on our website via Data Hub and in the Publications Store. New substances include endotoxins, triclosan, formic acid and methyl ethyl ketone. Click here for current substances and agents list. All comments can be submitted to science@acgih.org following the process outlined on the website.

85 Years of Advancing Occupational and Environmental Health

As we continue our journey into our 85th year of protecting OEHS professionals, ACGIH reflects on its history and changes.

For 85 years, ACGIH has been considered a well-respected organization by individuals in the industrial hygiene and occupational and environmental health and safety industry. What began as a limited membership base has grown to the all-encompassing Voting Member category of today. During this time, ACGIH has grown and expanded without losing sight of its original goal – to encourage the interchange of experience among industrial hygiene workers and to collect and make accessible such information and data as might be of aid to them in the proper fulfillment of their duties. This original goal is reflected in both our current mission – the advancement of occupational and environmental health – and in our tagline: Defining Science for OEHS Experts.

ACGIH offers so much now to the OEHS professional. Over the years, we’ve:

• opened our door to ‘all’ practitioners in the OEHS profession;
• grown and diversified our membership;
• gained more volunteers to provide their scientific knowledge in producing resources to keep us safe;
• expanded our leadership to run our organization with expert guidance;
• advanced our science to provide more accessible scientific data needed to protect the OEHS worker;
• progressed in our education with an impressive increase in our educational opportunities;
• produced scientific publications to give you accurate information to perform your job with confidence.

With the support of our member subscribers, ACGIH will continue this journey of protecting our industry workers and persistently pursue our work for more years to come.

Click here to read our history.

Michael Larrañaga Named New Editor-In-Chief for the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene

FALLS CHURCH, Va. (Dec. 13, 2022)—AIHA and the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) have announced Michael Larrañaga, PhD, PE, CIH, CSP, FAIHA as the new editor-in-chief for the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene (JOEH). Larrañaga, an internationally recognized expert in industrial hygiene and occupational and environmental health and safety, is the Founding Principal and President of R.E.M. Risk Consultants (R.E.M.), a safety, health, and risk management consulting firm. He replaces T. Renee Anthony, PhD, CIH, CSP, FAIHA who served as editor-in-chief of the JOEH from 2018 to 2022.

“I am excited to become the editor-in-chief of JOEH, and I hope to leverage the outstanding editorial review board to encourage a broader audience, seek submissions of high-quality international articles, and work with allied professions to secure a mix of practical and research submissions that expand the journal’s reach,” said Larrañaga. He added, “My goal is to facilitate efficient and thorough peer reviews that continue to make JOEH the first-choice journal for high-quality research in the field of occupational and environmental health.”

“Michael’s vast experience, his awards and honors, his contributions to the profession of occupational and environmental health and safety, and his enthusiasm make him the perfect leader for JOEH,” said Lawrence D. Sloan, AIHA’s CEO.

“We are very excited to have Michael join the team at JOEH. His outlook and experience give him a balanced perspective to serve as a driver for the future of the industrial hygiene profession,” noted Phillip Rauscher, Interim Executive Director of ACGIH.

An appointed member of the Scientific/Technical Advisory Committee of the World Trade Center Health Program, Larrañaga also serves as a representative of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society on the Technical Advisory Group ISO/TC 159, which develops international standards in ergonomics. He previously served on the NIOSH Board of Scientific Counselors, the joint NIOSH Cumulative Exposure Risk Group, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Opioid Working Group, and DHS First Responders Group. Larrañaga has held academic faculty positions at the University of North Texas Health Science Center, Texas Tech, Oklahoma State University, and Royal Roads University in Victoria, British Columbia. He is co-creator and founding Scholar for Innovation and Creativity in the Center for Homeland Defense and Security at the United States Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. In 2022, Larrañaga was awarded the inaugural AIHA Fellows Special Interest Group Mid-Career Award for his contributions to the profession of industrial hygiene.

Published jointly by AIHA and ACGIH, JOEH is a peer-reviewed publication devoted to enhancing the knowledge and practice of occupational and environmental health and safety. Since 2004, JOEH has published peer-reviewed research studies that examine exposures, risks, and controls that can be used to understand how exposures relate to health outcomes, and how these can be managed for the betterment of society. JOEH publishes studies across a range of investigation types, including laboratory investigations, field studies, simulations, and secondary data analyses. Stressors relating to adverse health outcomes are the main focus of JOEH, including chemical, biological, radiation, noise, ergonomics, and psychosocial hazards, including how work-life organization affects these exposures.

About AIHA

AIHA is the association for scientists and professionals committed to preserving and ensuring occupational and environmental health and safety in the workplace and community. Founded in 1939, we support our members with our expertise, networks, comprehensive education programs, and other products and services that help them maintain the highest professional and competency standards. More than half of AIHA’s nearly 8,500 members are Certified Industrial Hygienists, and many hold other professional designations. AIHA serves as a resource for those employed across the public and private sectors as well as to the communities in which they work. For more information, please visit www.aiha.org.

About ACGIH

Since 1938, ACGIH has been respected for its dedication to the industrial hygiene and occupational and environmental health and safety (OEHS) communities. ACGIH facilitates an interchange of scientific experiences among OEHS experts to collect and make accessible data to support threshold limit values (TLVs) for chemical substances and physical agents, biological exposure indices (BEIs), practical applications for industrial ventilation operations and design, as well as bioaerosols agents. For more information, please visit acgih.org.

New Compressed Schedule to TLV Development

ACGIH is updating our development process to better meet the needs of occupational and environmental health professionals. In 2023, we will be offering industry professionals the opportunity to provide comments twice per year for draft Documentation on the Notice of Intended Changes (NIC) and Notice of Intent to Establish (NIE) lists. The comment periods will run from January 1st to March 31st and July 1st to September 30th, with ratification occurring in May and November, and all changes will be posted online using Data Hub. TLV books will continue to be published at the beginning of every year. This compressed schedule will allow ACGIH scientific committees to finalize critical agents in half the time – providing critical information to the field when it is needed, while still allowing for input on all TLV changes.

Additionally, the under study list will no longer be tiered to allow chemical substances and physical agents to be added throughout the year and worked on immediately. All updates to the under study list will be reflected in ACGIH communications and on the ACGIH website.

For questions about this update or the development process, please contact the ACGIH Science Group at science@acgih.org.

Congratulations to the 2022 Award Recipients

Congratulations to the 2022 Award Recipients who made significant contributions to the profession through their leadership and dedication.

Be a Presenter for 2023 – Help Advance the OEHS Field

Do you have scientific OEHS knowledge and expertise to help advance the field? ACGIH Academy is currently seeking speakers to present webinars during our 2023 education season.