Open Call: Principles of Good Practice Advisory Group

Advisory Group Mission


Document a concise, easy-to-use summary of minimum recommended principles of good practice for the professional practice of industrial hygiene/occupational hygiene (IH/OH) that incorporate best risk management practices whenever feasible. Update and maintain the document as needed.


Purpose and Objectives


This initiative was established by the AIHA Guideline Foundation (AIHA GF) to identify industrial hygiene/occupational hygiene professional practices that are documented, peer reviewed, and applicable to all practitioners around the world. The intent of this initiative is to identify and communicate professional practices to improve protection of worker health.


Principles of Good Practice (PGP) are minimum expected practices and performance objectives established for a particular profession or function. Specific to the IH/OH profession, principles of good practice provide robust and reliable performance to effectively protect workers and communities from unacceptable risks.


The protection of workers and communities depends on the performance of risk management programs. As currently implemented, the effectiveness of those risk protection programs is highly variable, which may result in excessive risk for many workers and communities where they live and work. The PGPs are not intended for general community / public health but for IH/OH professionals whose practices go beyond protecting workers to protecting others in the community. In this context, community represents the fluid group of people that may be directly or indirectly impacted/protected as part of IH/OH practice. Examples of impacts to community include but are not limited to those from poor indoor air quality, wildfires, emergency response, natural disasters, and take-home exposures.


Principles of Good Practice (PGP) are intended to be concise guidance on risk-critical practices to protect worker health. Practices that are "risk- critical" are those that are most needed to effectively and efficiently manage hazards/risks within the scope and objectives established by the volunteer group. The PGP will help drive familiarity with various tools and guidance documents.


The PGP project will have value that will vary depending upon a practitioner's needs, career stage and level of expertise. For students, it is a set of practices for which they will need to develop skills in order to implement. For early career professionals the PGP may look more like a "quick start guide" to putting practices in place. For mid-career, it may serve as a continuous practice improvement guide, and for more experienced professionals it may serve as a refresher, benchmark or mentoring guide. The PGP also serve value as a communication tool to help convey to an organization's senior management what experts have defined as important practices to safeguard the health of workers and their communities.


The PGP are intended for IH/OH professionals and serve as a reference library for recommended IH/OH practices and resources that may serve as inspiration and justification for continuous improvement activities for the protection of worker health beyond base-line regulatory compliance. We acknowledge that IH/OH professionals may rely on organizational resources for many aspects of practice implementation; they are one of many stakeholders vying for organizational resources and may lack decision making authority. Therefore the extent and pace at which PGP practices can be implemented may vary significantly. In any case, compliance with relevant laws and regulations is always an expectation.


PGP are meant to be used in continuous improvement plan-do-check-act processes, using existing practices as the "current state" with the PGP recommended Good Practices serving as the performance target "desired state". The practitioner would then implement improvement plans and check plan progress against the target desired state.


Strategic Objectives


• Driving the overall effort to build out a Principles of Good Practice summary of risk-critical practices using the AIHA Guideline Foundation’s Framework for Documenting Principles of Good Practice (Appendix A).


• Engaging subject matter experts to provide input.


• Identifying partnership opportunities for engaging appropriate expert input from groups beyond the AIHA (e.g., ACGIH, NIOSH, BGC, IOHA).


• Updating and maintaining the Principles of Good Practice document as needed.


Group Composition


The advisory group is comprised of 8 to 10 members representing a cross-section of OEHS members from AIHA with expertise and experience covering a broad range of OEHS risk management programs and practices. Members of staff and additional partner organizations may be added as appropriate.


Each member serves for up to a three-year term. Terms are staggered so that as members rotate off, they are replaced with new members.


The Advisory Group will also have an AIHA Board Liaison appointed by the AIHA President; this individual does not serve as Chair or Vice-Chair of the Advisory Group.


The AIHA President selects a Vice-Chair from among those committee members entering their second year of service. The Vice-Chair becomes the Chair in his/her third year of service. Terms commence and end at AIHA Connect.


See the AIHA Principles of Good Practice Advisory Group Charter for a detailed description of the Advisory Group purpose and objectives, timelines, group composition, and roles / responsibilities.


Estimated Overall Time Commitment


· 1 to 1.5 hours virtual group meetings


· Individual work on behalf of the Advisory Group (estimate 2 to 4 hours / month)


Advisory Group Selection Process


The process of selecting new members begins with an open call for applications to the AIHA membership. Selections are made to ensure that the committee maintains as broad a diversity of representation as is reasonably possible.


Committee members must be current and active members of AIHA and are selected to provide a balanced representation based on, but not limited to, the following criteria:


· Mix of academics and practitioners


· Geographic diversity


· Prior volunteer engagement with AIHA


· Experience in drafting principles for good practice in another capacity


DEADLINE: APRIL 30,2025.



We hope to have decisions made within 3 weeks of the deadline stated above. If you have any questions, please contact Michele Twilley, DrPH, CIH (AIHA staff)

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Please upload your CV or resume in a pdf file format.

Drop your files here
 

NOTIFICATION

Our goal is to notify applicants within 3 weeks of the deadline stated above. In the event we do not receive enough applicants, this open call may be extended.