The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) released new tactics for managing potentially hazardous chemicals that would help protect workers by assigning them into categories, or “bands”.

Many chemicals do not have occupational exposure limits (OELs) in the workplace, which could potentially expose workers to harmful levels of these substances. Occupational exposure banding is a process that assigns each chemical to a category based on its toxicity and any negative health outcomes associated with exposure to it. The report “The NIOSH Occupational Exposure Banding Process for Chemical Management” provides a process with procedures and rules for assignment which can be used in a wide range of workplaces.

The banding process is not meant to replace quantitative OELs, it is a voluntary approach which will act as a starting point to inform better risk management decisions for chemical substances that do not have OELs.

“NIOSH has devoted significant efforts to develop, assess, and validate the occupational exposure banding strategy with the overall goal of reducing safety and health risks for workers,” said NIOSH Director John Howard, M.D. “In the absence of formalized OELs, the exposure banding approach serves to identify workplace hazards and helps employers implement control strategies that keep workers safe on the job.”

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Toxic Substances Control Act Chemical Substance Inventory currently contains more than 85,000 chemicals that are commercially available, but only about 1,000 have an OEL.

This can be used by public health agencies, occupational health and safety professionals, employers, trade associations, labor organizations, and state-level programs to protect workers. One of the challenges is that many of these professionals have no decision-making framework to screen relevant data when assessing chemical substances and developing exposure control guidance.

Read more with this update from NIOSH.