National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health

Programs

Major guidance publications

NIOSH determines recommended exposure limits and immediately dangerous to life or health levels for toxic chemicals and other hazards, which are published in various types of publications.

Criteria Documents contain recommendations for the prevention of occupational diseases and injuries. These documents are submitted to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration or the Mine Safety and Health Administration for consideration in their formulation of legally binding safety and health standards.

Current Intelligence Bulletins analyze new information about occupational health and safety hazards.

The NIOSH Manual of Analytical Methods contains recommended standard methods for collection, sampling and analysis of contaminants in the workplace and industrial hygiene samples, including air filters, biological fluids, wipes and bulks for occupationally relevant analytes.

The NIOSH Pocket Guide to Chemical Hazards informs workers, employers, and occupational health professionals about workplace chemicals and their hazards.

Field studies

NIOSH conducts field research through a number of programs:

• The Health Hazard Evaluation Program allows employees, employers, and labor unions can request assistance from the HHE program at no cost to them.
• The Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation program publishes occupational fatality data that are used to publish fatality reports by specific sectors of industry and types of fatal incidents.
• The Fire Fighter Fatality Investigation and Prevention Program investigates specifically the causes of firefighter deaths on the job.

National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory

The National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory (NPPTL) is a research center within NIOSH located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, devoted to research on personal protective equipment (PPE). NPPTL was created in 2001 at the request of the U.S. Congress, in response to a recognized need for improved research in PPE technologies. It focuses on experimentation and recommendations for respirator masks, by ensuring a level of standard filter efficiency, and develops criteria for testing and developing PPE.

The laboratory conducts research and provides recommendations for other types of PPE, including protective clothing, gloves, eye protection, headwear, hearing protection, chemical sensors, and communication devices for safe deployment of emergency workers. It also maintains certification for N95 respirators, and hosts an annual education day for N95 education. Its emergency response research is part of a collaboration with the National Fire Protection Association.

In the 2010s, the NPPTL has focused on pandemic influenza preparedness, CBRNE incidents, miner PPE, and nanotechnology.

NIOSH Certified Equipment List

NPPTL is the designated publisher of the NIOSH Certified Equipment List, or CEL. The CEL is a public domain database that details the respirators currently approved by NIOSH, and is ordered separated based on type of respirator, which is designated with a schedule (e.g. TC-84A). The CEL was initially released in paper form on September 30, 1993. However, due to low usage of the paper CEL, as well as the increasing number of respirators approved by NIOSH, a Microsoft Access-based version of the CEL was released. Initial releases of the CEL had hose and pressure information for air-line respirators. This information had been eliminated due to concerns over users prioritizing the CEL over respirator documentation.

Mining safety research

NIOSH's two mining safety research divisions are devoted towards the elimination of mining fatalities, injuries, and illnesses through research and prevention. Mining research done by NIOSH is primarily focused in two locations: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Spokane, Washington. The Pittsburgh site focuses on a larger scope of mine safety and health issues, including dust monitoring and control, mine ventilation, hearing loss prevention and engineering noise controls, diesel particulate monitoring and control, emergency response and rescue, firefighting and prevention, training research, ergonomics and machine safety, mine ground control, electrical safety, explosives safety, surveillance, and technology transfer. The Spokane site primarily focuses on metal and nonmetal mining.

This was originally conducted by the U.S. Bureau of Mines, which was founded in 1910. Following the dissolution of the U.S. Bureau of Mines in 1995–1996, its Safety and Health Program was transferred to the Department of Energy on an interim basis. In 1997, it was permanently transferred to NIOSH as the Office of Mine Safety and Health Research. In 2015, it was administratively divided into two divisions by location, the Pittsburgh Mining Research Division and the Spokane Mining Research Division.

Compensation and support

NIOSH administers the World Trade Center Health Program, which provides medical benefits to specific groups of individuals who were affected by the September 11 attacks in 2001 against the United States. The WTC Health Program was established by Title I of the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act in 2011.

Separately, for some claims for cancers that may have been caused by occupational radiation exposure filed under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program, NIOSH's Division of Compensation Analysis and Support performs a radiation dose reconstruction. NIOSH requests the energy employee's individual exposure records, and interviews the claimant or survivors, and collects all relevant data regarding the individual's work site.

B Reader Program

NIOSH certifies physicians, known as B readers, qualified to read radiographic images of various occupational diseases, such as diseases caused by silica, asbestos, and coal dust. A list of B Readers can be found on the NIOSH website for the program. B Reader testimony has been used extensively in mesothelioma personal injury lawsuits.

Epidemiology and health surveillance

NIOSH has several programs in occupational epidemiology and workplace health surveillance, including:

• Adult Blood Lead Epidemiology and Surveillance
• National Firefighter Registry for Cancer
• SENSOR-Pesticides

Hearing protection

• Buy Quiet and Safe-in-Sound Award
• The NIOSH Power Tools Database contains sound power levels, sound pressure levels, and vibrations data for a variety of common power tools that have been tested by NIOSH researchers.
• The NIOSH Hearing Protection Device Compendium contains attenuation information and features for commercially available earplugs, earmuffs and semi-aural insert devices (canal caps).

Extramural programs

Education and Research Centers

NIOSH Education and Research Centers are multidisciplinary centers supported by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health for education and research in the field of occupational health. Through the centers, NIOSH supports academic degree programs and research opportunities, as well as continuing education for OSH professionals. The ERCs, distributed in regions across the United States, establish academic, labor, and industry research partnerships. The research conducted at the centers is related to the National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA) established by NIOSH.

Founded in 1977, NIOSH ERCs are responsible for nearly half of post-baccalaureate graduates entering occupational health and safety fields. The ERCs focus on industrial hygiene, occupational health nursing, occupational medicine, occupational safety, and other areas of specialization. At many ERCs, students in specific disciplines have their tuition paid in full and receive additional stipend money. ERCs provide a benefit to local businesses by offering reduced price assessments to local businesses.

Centers for Agricultural Safety and Health

The Centers for Agricultural Safety and Health (CASH) are a set of 12 NIOSH-funded agencies focused on occupational health in industry involving food or plant products, such as fishing, forestry, and agriculture. The agencies were established in 1990 under the Agricultural Health and Safety Initiative.

The National Agricultural Safety Database, which contains citations and summaries of scholarly journal articles and reports about agricultural health and safety, was developed through the CASH program.

Locations and organization

NIOSH has 12 divisions, distributed among eight locations across the United States.

Cincinnati

NIOSH's largest location is Cincinnati, which has two facilities. The first is the Robert A. Taft Laboratory in the Columbia-Tusculum neighborhood, which hosts the Division of Compensation Analysis and Support and Division of Science Integration. It was named for the then-recently deceased Senator Robert A. Taft, opened in 1954, and was initially used by for the PHS Environmental Health Divisions and their successor the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The second Cincinnati facility is the Alice Hamilton Laboratory at 5555 Ridge Avenue in the Pleasant Ridge neighborhood, which hosts the Division of Field Studies and Engineering. 5555 Ridge Avenue was constructed during 1952–1954 and was initially the headquarters and manufacturing plant of Disabled American Veterans; PHS leased space in it beginning in 1962, and by 1973 the entire building was leased by the federal government.

NIOSH occupied both buildings in 1976, after EPA moved to the new Andrew W. Breidenbach Environmental Research Center. In 1982, 5555 Ridge Avenue was purchased outright by PHS, and in 1987 it was renamed the Alice Hamilton Laboratory for Occupational Safety and Health, after occupational health pioneer Alice Hamilton.

Other locations

NIOSH's headquarters are in Washington, D.C., with a branch in Atlanta. The Office of the Director and the World Trade Center Health Program are centered at these locations. NIOSH and its direct predecessor has had a presence in the Washington, D.C. area going back to 1918. NIOSH's presence in Atlanta began when the headquarters moved there in 1981, and offices were retained there when the headquarters returned to the Washington area in 1994.

The Morgantown, West Virginia location hosts the Division of Safety Research, Health Effects Laboratory Division, and Respiratory Health Division. It dates from the Appalachian Laboratory for Occupational Respiratory Diseases created in 1967, and the building opened in 1971. In 1996, a second building adjoining the first opened.

The facilities in the Pittsburgh suburb of Bruceton, Pennsylvania host the Pittsburgh Mining Research Division and National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory, and the Spokane, Washington location hosts the Spokane Mining Research Division and Western States Division. The locations were inherited from the U.S. Bureau of Mines after it was closed in 1996 and its research activities were transferred to NIOSH. The Pittsburgh campus dated from the beginning of the Bureau of Mines in 1910, and contained the historic Experimental Mine and Mine Roof Simulator. The Spokane facility dates from 1951.

The Western States Division also has branch locations in Denver and Anchorage, Alaska. The Denver location was established in the 1970s as a regional office, and the Alaska location was established in 1991.

History

Predecessor

NIOSH's earliest predecessor was the U.S. Public Health Service Office of Industrial Hygiene and Sanitation, established in 1914. It went through several name changes, most notably becoming the Division of Industrial Hygiene and later the Division of Occupational Health. Its headquarters were established in Washington, D.C. in 1918, and field stations in Salt Lake City in 1949, and in Cincinnati in 1950.

Establishment

NIOSH was created by the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 and began operating in May 1971. It was originally part of the Health Services and Mental Health Administration, and was transferred into what was then called the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in 1973. NIOSH's initial headquarters were located in Rockville, Maryland.

Prior to 1976, NIOSH's Cincinnati operations occupied space at three locations in Downtown Cincinnati, and rented space at 5555 Ridge Avenue in the Pleasant Ridge neighborhood. In 1976, staff at the Downtown locations were relocated to the Robert A. Taft Center in the Columbia-Tusculum neighborhood, which the Environmental Protection Agency was vacating to occupy the new Andrew W. Breidenbach Environmental Research Center elsewhere in Cincinnati.

The Appalachian Laboratory for Occupational Respiratory Diseases, which had been created within the PHS in 1967 to focus on black lung disease research, was incorporated into NIOSH, and its building in Morgantown, West Virginia was opened in 1971. As of 1976, NIOSH also continued to operate its Salt Lake City facility.

Later history

In 1981, the headquarters was moved from Rockville to Atlanta to co-locate with CDC headquarters. The headquarters moved back to Washington, D.C. in 1994, though offices were maintained in Atlanta.

When the U.S. Bureau of Mines was closed in 1996, its research activities were transferred to NIOSH along with two facilities in the Pittsburgh suburbs and in Spokane, Washington. NIOSH preserved the administrative independence of these activities by placing them in the new Office of Mine Safety and Health Research.

In 1977, NIOSH had ten regional offices throughout the country. These were closed over time, and by 1989 there were regional offices only in Denver and Boston. The Alaska Field Station in Anchorage, Alaska was established in 1991 in response to the state having the highest work-related fatality rate, with Senator Ted Stevens playing a role in its establishment. It later become known as the Alaska Pacific Regional Office, and in 2015, the Denver, Anchorage, and non-mining Spokane staff joined into the Western States Division.

In 1996, a large addition was built to the Morgantown facility containing safety engineering and bench laboratories. In 2015, funding was approved for a new facility in Cincinnati to replace the Taft and Hamilton buildings, which were considered to be obsolete. A location for the new facility in the Avondale neighborhood was announced in 2017, and proposals from architectural and engineering firms were solicited in 2019.

In 2001, NIOSH was called upon to help clean up Capitol Hill buildings after the 2001 anthrax attacks.

In 2025, most NIOSH staff were fired and most of its departments were closed following orders by HHS secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Directors

The following people were Director of NIOSH:

Table notes