OSHA Has Data. Does It Have Safety and Health?

A worker at a decontamination site in Venice, Louisiana, cleans a dirty oil containment boom. Photo: U.S. Coast Guard/Petty Officer 3rd Class Patrick Kelley (United States government work).

Reporter’s Toolbox: OSHA Has Data. Does It Have Safety and Health?

By Joseph A. Davis

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration may not do enough to protect workers, but it sure does keep good records. 

Congress established OSHA at the dawn of the 1970s environmental decade. The OSH Act was possibly the first law really giving Americans a right to know what toxic chemicals they were being exposed to.

On the other hand, if we list all the things OSHA has done wrong, we will have no room to tell you about the data. OSHA proactively publishes a lot of it (unlike some other agencies). The Catch-22 is that journalists can use this data to support better stories about what OSHA is doing wrong.

 

OSHA material safety data sheets

have for decades stood as one of the

best technically accurate plain-English

guides to common toxic chemicals.

 

Just for example, OSHA puts out material safety data sheets that have for decades stood as one of the best technically accurate plain-English guides to common toxic chemicals. 

Are they data? Heck, yes: good data. Great for journalists and their lay audiences. Though not necessarily grist for the classic kind of data journalism Phil Meyer (may require subscription) taught.

This data is valuable because it’s like a canary in the coal mine. It’s well-established that occupational exposure to toxic chemicals is often heavier than the exposures of ordinary citizens. But not always.

One pro tip on the data sheets: Start by getting the lookup tables for standard industrial classification and North American industry classification system codes for industrial categories, which are key to data projects in this area.

But there’s more. Is the data good? That depends. 

The data is not complete if OSHA rules are not complete (as with the Biden administration proposed rule on extreme-heat working conditions, which Trump has blocked). 

The data is not good if OSHA doesn’t do enough inspections and adequately enforce its rules. Or if companies lie. 

But we expect what data it does publish to reflect OSHA records accurately. Most go back in time several decades. 

How to use the data smartly

Let’s look at some of what’s available.

• OSHA inspection data: You can get all kinds of data about inspections, including searches for investigation summaries, searches by establishment, searches by NAICS categories and subcategories, inspection number(s) and general duty clause violations.
• Injury and illness data: You can search this data for injury tracking application data (OSHA Forms 300A, 300, 301), severe injury reports, work-related fatalities inspected by OSHA and investigation summaries for fatalities and nonfatalities. Depending on some limitations, employers subject to OSHA jurisdiction are required to report serious injuries to the agency.
• Occupational chemical and air sampling data: This data may be useful in assessing threats to off-site nearby communities. You can search both chemical exposure health data and OSHA’s occupational chemical database.

And that’s not even all of it. Toolbox recommends checking whether your state has its own OSHA plan, or even its own OSH laws and agencies. 

It also wouldn’t hurt to check your state’s whistleblower protection laws (since disgruntled or sick employees may be your best sources).

And yes, go to plants — but don’t expect them to show you the worst. So be sure to visit neighbors, schools and nursing homes near the fence line. 

Cross-check with data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Talk to local doctors and citizen pollution monitoring groups. Groundtruth everything you can. 

[Editor’s Note: Track the latest headlines on OSHA from EJToday. And for more on chemical safety issues, see a Toolbox on blackouts on hazmat risk data and a TipSheet on a hazardous risk reporting resource at risk, a Feature on chemical plants, terrorism and regulations, Backgrounders on the workings of the Chemical Safety Board and the need for ongoing coverage of chemical safety, and WatchDog Opinion columns on risk management plans and on EPA chemical risk info as trade secrets. We’ve also got Toolboxes to help you use the CompTox chemicals dashboard, CAMEO software for covering chemical disasters and the Toxic Substances Control Act, as well as TipSheets on hazardous site datasets, tracking down chemical facilities and secret rail hazmat routes near you, and on using toxic chemicals data for reporting in your community. Also see our Feature on how journalistic teamwork uncovered years of chemical regulatory failure in Texas.]

Joseph A. Davis is a freelance writer/editor in Washington, D.C. who has been writing about the environment since 1976. He writes SEJournal Online's TipSheet, Reporter's Toolbox and Issue Backgrounder, and curates SEJ's weekday news headlines service EJToday and @EJTodayNews. Davis also directs SEJ's Freedom of Information Project and writes the WatchDog opinion column.

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* From the weekly news magazine SEJournal Online, Vol. 11, No. 33. Content from each new issue of SEJournal Online is available to the public via the SEJournal Online main page. Subscribe to the e-newsletter here. And see past issues of the SEJournal archived here.