Science and Compliance: A Tale of Two Mentalities

Presenter: Chason J. Coelho, Ph.D. CSP CFI

When a workplace injury or fatality occurs, the actions of employers, workers, and sometimes product manufacturers are scrutinized. This scrutiny typically involves mandatory requirements provided by Federal OSHA and/or an approved OSHA State Plan, and it often raises complex questions about compliance and interactions between employers, workers, and equipment. 

When a potential non-compliance is identified, it may be tempting to conclude that it was part of the incident chain as a cause or contributor. However, whether and how the non-compliance meets these definitions can be debatable. It is often helpful in this situation to appeal to scientific literature, principles, and methods regarding issues such as human perception and action, decision making, risk perception, product usability, warnings, instructions, and others. 

Human Factors can be defined as a scientific field concerning how humans interact with physical and cognitive information, hardware and software interfaces, environments, and other people. Indeed, Human Factors issues are scientific and treatable with rigorous methods, techniques, and investigatory tools. 

This presentation will discuss how Human Factors can be combined with occupational safety and health to help illuminate the issues of both science and compliance through evaluation of the conduct of employers, workers, contractors, and product manufacturers in these contexts.