Last week, I announced the opportunity to complete a survey on SDS use in the workplace. This survey replicated a 1995 survey on this topic that was published in the Journal of Chemical Health and Safety. 139 DCHAS-L subscribers responded to this survey over the last week and you can see the raw data results on the updated web page at
https://dchas.org/2018/12/06/sds-23-years-later/
In this post, I also included a link to a related article I ran across this week which evaluated the readability of a variety of workplace safety materials for the construction industry. The rubrics used by the study to assess the readability of these materials for a different audience provide food for thought about what level of education we should write our safety materials for. If we require a undergraduate understanding of chemistry to approach a Job Hazard Analysis or a Safety Data Sheet, are we placing an excessive cognitive load on people whose minds are focused on challenging scientific work?
Thanks to everyone who took the 2 minutes to respond to the SDS survey. If anyone is interesting in leading a project to update this survey for the 2019 world, please let me know.
- Ralph
Ralph Stuart, CIH, CCHO
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American Chemical Society
Division of Chemical Health and Safety
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