Outcomes of Laboratory Safety Workshop: Empirical Lab Safety Data (90-Minute Session)

[Note to reviewers from C.Monforton: this speaker is available to participate in a panel with other presenters talking about lab safety.] Chemical hazards in laboratories have not yet been studied in a systematic and empirical way. Instead, laboratory practice is generally governed by application and misapplication of common sense, often with very little empirical evidence to address the inherent risks and hazards in these environments. We want to change this and, by researching safety controls, design, and behavior, we hope to provide the scientific community with empirical data on this important topic. Several tragic accidents in Chemistry and Biochemistry departments, including a severely disfiguring incident at Texas Tech University, and fatal accidents at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and Yale University, point to the need for empirical data about laboratory safety. The UC Laboratory Safety Workshop, held in March 2012, will establish research priorities and criteria for the empirical study and development of evidence-based best practices as identified by the 2010 National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Safety Summit. The workshop will strategize solutions to address those problems by focusing on research that would lead to the development of data-driven laboratory safety practices. Session Objective: explain the outcomes of the Laboratory Safety Workshop; discuss the templates established as a model for future H&S media, publications, studies, initiatives and practices nationwide in both the private and public sectors. It is anticipated that template(s) established during the Workshop will lead to significant scientific advancements in the field of OHS.