Newsroom@DominionPost.com
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health celebrates 50 years and entered its golden era Wednesday.
To commemorate this milestone, NIOSH is featuring a series of special events and products that highlight the contributions NIOSH, including its Morgantown research facilities, has made to the nation’s workforce.
“Our nation has evolved rapidly in the last 50 years, and the jobs workers do, the hazards they face and the way their work is organized have significantly changed,” said NIOSH Director John Howard. “On this 50th-year commemoration of NIOSH, the Institute recommits to addressing both persistent and emerging issues, looking at workplace culture, and challenging our research to be both innovative and forward-thinking.”
Fifty years ago, April 28, 1971, NIOSH officially began its operations. A short time prior to that, Congress passed the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 that created NIOSH as a separate and independent research program to create objective scientific findings and “to assure so far as possible every working man and woman in the nation safe and healthful working conditions.”
NIOSH has deep roots in West Virginia. In 1967, the U.S. Public Health Service created the Appalachian Laboratory for Occupational Respiratory Diseases in Morgantown to focus on lung disease in coal miners. After the OSH Act was passed in 1970, ALFORD became part of NIOSH. The NIOSH facilities in Morgantown expanded to include research into additional work-related respiratory diseases as well as research for preventing occupational injuries and basic and applied laboratory research focused on evaluating, controlling and preventing workplace safety and health hazards.
Today, about 450 researchers and staff throughout NIOSH Morgantown have dedicated their passion and expertise to worker safety and health and are changing the future of occupational safety and health research while building on a rich and important history.
Moving forward, NIOSH remains committed to achieving its mission to develop new knowledge in the field of occupational safety and health and to transfer that knowledge into practice.
For more information about NIOSH’s 50th anniversary, including important milestones and ongoing events, visit the NIOSH 50th Anniversary webpage at https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/about/50thanniversary.html.
NIOSH is the federal institute that conducts research and makes recommendations for preventing work-related injuries, illnesses and deaths. Info: www.cdc.gov/niosh.
TWEET @DominionPostWV
