890 - What's Happening to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)?

Public Health On Call

The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Novelcoronavirus, Health, Publichealth, Covid, Globalhealth, Coronavirus, News, Health & Fitness, Education, Medicine, Covid19, Science

4.8 • 620 Ratings

🗓️ 5 May 2025

⏱️ 16 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

About this episode:

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) is an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services with a mission to protect the nation’s workforce from occupational hazards and illnesses. Their work includes setting policy and best practices around safety standards for things like exposure to toxic chemicals, firearms in the workplace, and even protecting workers’ data. NIOSH is among the many Centers that suffered personnel and funding cuts under HHS’s recent restructuring. In this episode: a look at NIOSH’s work and how the cuts may impact worker safety—particularly at a time when there is great interest in leveling up the manufacturing industry in the U.S.

Guest:

Ram Ramachandran is the director of the Johns Hopkins Education and Research Center for Occupational Safety and Health.

Cass Crifasi is the director of Occupational Injury Epidemiology and Prevention Program at the Johns Hopkins Education and Research Center for Occupational Safety and Health.

Host:

Stephanie Desmon, MA, is a former journalist, author, and the director of public relations and communications for the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs, the largest center at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Show links and related content:

American workers deserve better than to lose their safety watchdogs—The Hill (Opinion)
The CDC’s critical occupational safety institute has been virtually wiped out—STAT

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health,
0:05.9	where we bring evidence, experience, and perspective to make sense of today's leading health challenges.
0:16.3	If you have questions or ideas for us, please send an email to public health question at jh.h.edu.
0:23.8	That's public health question at jh.u.edu for future podcast episodes.
0:30.8	This is Lindsay Smith Rogers.
0:33.3	Massive funding cuts have been made to NIOSH, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health,
0:39.7	the Federal Agency responsible for conducting research and making recommendations for the prevention of work-related injury, illness, disability, and death.
0:49.2	Today, Stephanie Desmond talks to Ram Ram Rajandran and Cass Krafasi, two Johns Hopkins experts who lead the
0:55.8	school's NIOSH education and research center, the future of which remains in doubt. Let's listen.
1:03.2	Ram Ram Ramachandran and Cass Krafasi, thank you both so much for joining me. Thank you very much.
1:09.9	So today we're going to talk about NIOSH and cuts at NIOSH.
1:13.6	And before we get any further than that, Rahm, could you please tell me what NIOSH is?
1:18.6	So NIOSH stands for the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
1:23.6	And it was created by an act of Congress in 1971 to essentially protect the nation's
1:31.9	workforce, workers, from a variety of occupational hazards and occupational illnesses. One of the
1:39.8	things that NIOSH was asked to do was to create the nation's workforce in occupational safety and
1:47.9	health. And the way it did that was by funding these education and research centers around the
1:55.3	country in various universities. And so over the years, now there are 18 such centers around the country, and the one at Johns Hopkins is one of them.
2:05.6	And it's different from OSHA. Tell me that, tell me about that realm.
2:11.6	So OSHA is the enforcement wing of that same occupational safety and health act.
2:18.3	So there are two agencies created in that act.
2:21.3	One was, like the name suggests, it's, Nairosha is a research institute,
	...

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