Keynote / Opening Session - Wylie Davidson

Leaving a Safety Legacy

Leaving a Safety Legacy is a refreshing look at two of the hardest challenges many companies face today: Compliance and Engagement. This presentation addresses these issues by uncovering the personal value in safety both on the job and at home and delivers a clear path for attendees to follow. 

By challenging the status quo and the “what’s in it for me” mentality, this message is designed to get attendees to develop a stronger value on their own personal safety as well as the safety of others while gaining essential insight on how to give back, ultimately creating their own safety legacy. 

Learning Objectives

Connecting your actions to safe behaviors to gain a stronger understanding of how their actions impact themselves, as well as others, creating a clearer vision of how it impacts them personally.

Resetting their personal values to better align with safety standards to have a better understanding of how their actions impact them both on and off the job.

Building their foundation by utilizing real world tools that they can utilize to create their own impactful safety legacy.   

The Use of NIOSH Approved Respirators in the United States

 In this presentation, NIOSH will give you a broad understanding of the steps involved in obtaining and maintaining NIOSH approval for respirators. NIOSH, the federal agency overseeing the respirator approval program, aims to provide American workers with high-quality respirators that meet performance and quality standards and offer effective respiratory protection. To achieve this goal, respirators undergo a thorough evaluation process that assesses their performance, construction, and the continued adherence to the NIOSH requirements and the manufacturer's quality management systems. By understanding the process of NIOSH respirator approval, workers can have confidence in the respirators they use, knowing that they will provide the promised level of protection. 

Learning Objectives: 

By attending this presentation, the audience will gain a comprehensive overview of the use of respirators in the United States and the rigorous evaluation process they undergo. This knowledge will enable them to understand how respirators are evaluated to ensure proper protection for workers. 

Understanding Heat Stress and How to Stay Safe

Heat Stress and the resulting physiological strain may result in heat injuries or illnesses ranging from mild to severe (even fatal). To improve occupational safety, especially those who work in hot environments and/or wear encapsulating PPE, it is important to understand the sources of heat, how the body responds to exposure to heat, and how heat can overcome the physiological regulation of body temperature. This presentation will discuss the basic thermodynamics of heat, how heat is measured, the physiological mechanisms involved in controlling body temperature (thermoregulation), the sources of body heat, and what happens when the normal physiological controls involved in thermoregulation are inadequate in the presence of either environmental or metabolically produced heat. The types and severity of heat illness/injury will be discussed ranging from the mild to the severe and some of the long-term consequences of severe heat injury or illness.

Learning Objectives:

It is anticipated that the audience will gain a basic understanding of the nature and source of heat, the physiological responses to heat (both environmental and metabolic), the means to measure heat, and the nature and severity of heat injury/illness. It is through this understanding that the members of the audience will be able to design strategies for preventing heat illness and injury.

Yinz Good?  How Pittsburgh's Construction Industry is Tackling Mental Health One Yinzer at a Time

 In the U.S., you are more likely to die from suicide than an automobile accident or by homicide. Our nation loses 47,500 people per year to suicide, 38,800 to automobile accidents, and 19,141 to homicide. This means you are 2.5 times more likely to die by your own hand than the hands of others. More specifically, the construction industry has one of the highest rates of suicide at 53.3 per 100,000 U.S. workers. That rate is four times greater than the national average and five times greater than that of all other construction fatalities combined. Coupled with a substance misuse issue that results in an overdose death rate more than 14 times higher than construction fatalities, the need for a meaningful and effective behavioral health program is priority one. By providing effective resources to employers, employees, and families, the industry is breaking down the stigma around mental health, intervening early in issues effecting employees, and providing critical care to individuals. And it all starts with one simple question: Yinz Good? 

Learning Objectives

Attendees for this session will gain a better understanding of the issues facing the construction industry when it comes to mental health and substance abuse. Throughout the session they will learn meaningful takeaways that they can adopt or use to create their own behavioral health program. 

CPWR’s Safety Climate & Pre-Job Planning Resources

CPWR – The Center for Construction Research and Training is a non-profit originally created by NABTU with a focus on reducing occupational injuries, illnesses, and fatalities in the construction industry. The organization accomplishes that through a variety of research, training, and service programs, and has produced countless resources to improve industry awareness and adoption of solutions. Among those resources are FREE programs and tools aimed at helping employers improve their workplace safety climate and related safety management policies and procedures such as pre-job and pre-task planning and training of workers.

Jessica will review a number of these resources, including a Safety Climate Safety Management system (scsmis.org), CPWR’s Foundations for Safety Leadership training program, and several hazard control planning tools and checklists.

Learning Objectives:

The audience will gain a better understanding of how establishing a workplace culture that puts safety and worker wellbeing at the forefront can lead to improved safety outcomes. They will know how to access numerous free, research-based tools and resources that can help construction employers develop a positive safety climate/culture and reduce the risk of exposure to workplace hazards that cause injury and illness.

Everything I Can Tell You About PFAS in 45 Minutes

PFAS are a class of chemicals that have gotten increased attention in recent years. New regulations and guidelines are starting to affect a wide range of industries. This talk will cover the basics of what PFAS are, how to sample them and analyze them, the most common exposure routes, what the common numbers mean, and new regulations being proposed and accepted. 

Learning Objectives:

Basic understanding of PFAS, testing, sample collection, exposure routes, and regulations.