In 2021, Sharon Bird was appointed Director of the NIEHS Worker Training Program (WTP), bringing decades of valuable experience and leadership skills to her new role. She was preceded by Joseph “Chip” Hughes, who left the WTP to become the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Epidemic and Emergency Response in the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
Ms. Baird has led the Institute’s Environmental Worker Training Program (ECWTP) for over 25 years (previously ECWTP was called Minority Worker Training Programme). This position requires building collaboration, long-term strategic thinking, and a deep understanding of both job-related and socio-economic challenges faced by workers involved in hazardous waste removal, disaster response, and related projects.
Baird is a member of the American Society of Public Health and the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists. (Image courtesy of Sharon Beard / NIEHS)As an industrial hygienist by training, Ms. Bird is a national leader in this field. She received the 2021 Rachel Carson Award from the American Industrial Hygiene Association based on her outstanding work in environmental and industrial health and safety. In 2013, she received the prestigious Lauren Kerr Award from the American Public Health Association, which honored Bird for her efforts in developing effective training programs for low-income workers.
She brings her expertise to bear on the day-to-day management of a water treatment plant. The organization funds long-term cooperative agreements and grants aimed at training individuals how to keep themselves safe in hazardous work environments, and this requires collaboration with stakeholders and partners across the country. Ms. Bird also focuses on Environmental justice issues(https://tools.niehs.nih.gov/wetp/index.cfm?id=13). Its leadership priorities are based on its understanding of how disadvantaged individuals—whether due to factors such as location, race, or income—are most vulnerable to natural disasters, the negative health effects of climate change, and other environmental challenges.
For example, Ms. Bird serves on the NIEHS School of Environmental Health Disparities and Environmental Justice and the White House’s Interagency Advisory Board on Environmental Justice. It also helps in progress Justice40 . initiativean effort led by the Biden administration aimed at ensuring that 40% of federal investments in clean energy benefit disadvantaged communities.
I recently spoke with Ms. Bird to find out more about her efforts at WTP and what led her to pursue a career in industrial health, specifically in environmental health and safety (see first sidebar). One thing that stood out from our conversation was that she is passionate about translating research on environmental and occupational hazards into easy-to-understand, actionable advice for workers facing potentially harmful exposures.
Hazardous materials, disasters and infectious diseases
Rick and Wishek: Can you describe the history of WTP for environment factor readers?
Sharon Bird: surely. Our program was created in 1986, after Congress passed the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act. We are what I like to call the application arm of NIEHS. We take research, translate it, and develop training and tools to make sure workers and volunteers involved in hazardous materials, disaster response, and environmental cleanups understand potential health risks and how to protect themselves while doing their jobs.
Beard, who appears here at the 2014 WTP meeting, has a master’s degree in environmental sciences and management from Tufts University. (Image credits to Steve McCaw / NIEHS)We build partnerships with grant recipients—labor organizations, nonprofit groups, and educational institutions, among others—to create hands-on training for workers. At first, we focused on hazardous materials training, but we expanded. For example, WTP now includes ECWTP, which helps disadvantaged workers gain valuable job and life skills; Cooperating with the US Department of Energy to train personnel at nuclear facilities; and safety education related to infectious diseases such as Ebola and more recently, COVID-19.
Organizations we partner with – whether we’re talking about a Building Research and Training Center; nonprofit organizations that focus on vulnerable populations; or a group such as OAI, Inc. , which works with diverse and underrepresented groups of workers – is invaluable in terms of building community trust and advancing worker health and safety. WTP supports a variety of programs across the United States, and we’ve been involved in all kinds of emergency response activities, from 9/11 and major oil spills to climate-related disasters like hurricanes, wildfires, and floods.
We also sought to develop appropriate training for the target population. We encourage what I call language justice, where if we train individuals for whom English is their second language, our materials are presented in their first language because that is how you increase understanding of educational content. We also use peer-to-peer training, so if we are talking about a carpenter, he masters the content and then shares that knowledge with other carpenters. This is all about effective communication, engagement and making sure that the training developed by our beneficiaries has maximum impact.
I would like to add that WTP also established the National Labor Safety and Health Training Clearing-House, which has been integral in providing our awardees with curricula, safety protocols, technical reports and relevant news in the world of worker training.
Helping disadvantaged communities thrive
RW: You mentioned ECWTP, which you have been involved with since its inception in 1995. Can you talk a little bit about the success of this program and how you can build on that success to help advance President Biden’s Justice40 initiative?
SB: One of the things I learned from my work with sanitation communities when I was in graduate school at Tufts University is that collaboration is key. When I got to NIEHS the program mainly focused on partnering with major building organizations, and we didn’t really branch out to develop more partnerships. So, I focused on trying to get all the players to the table so that ECWTP would be more successful in terms of helping the unemployed, the unemployed, the homeless, people who might have been incarcerated, etc.
The idea was to create a win-win situation where our beneficiaries built effective training programs and participants acquired the skills needed to be productive members of their communities. We have reached out to community colleges, historically black colleges and universities, apprenticeship programs, and many nonprofit organizations to truly transform ECWTP and achieve exceptional results.
Shown here at the 2015 WTP meeting, Beard is a skilled team builder well suited to lead the WTP, where collaboration and partnerships are paramount. (Image credits to Steve McCaw / NIEHS)To date, our grant recipients have trained more than 13,500 individuals, and 70% of these people have secured jobs in environmental restoration, construction, hazardous materials and waste treatment, and emergency response. Some of the stories are really great. Participants have gone from living in poverty to earning more than $100,000 a year and being able to afford to send their children to college. Also, the Economic Impact Report examining the benefit of the ECWTP to local communities showed that between 1995 and 2013, the program’s annual investment of $3 million resulted in total gains of $1.79 billion, or approximately $100 million each year.
ECWTP aims to help underserved communities, and I believe that is why we chose to participate in the Justice40 pilot. It is a natural fit for us because 100% of the benefits of the training initiatives we fund go to disadvantaged communities. We provide the resources and tools participants need to be successful. I believe that in many ways, the ECWTP can serve as a model for projects beyond environmental professional training, and I look forward to expanding on what we’ve done to help inform broader efforts across the country.
Building climate resilience in the most affected areas
RW: As you know, NIEHS helps lead the National Institutes of Health [National Institutes of Health] Climate Change and Health Initiative. Can you share with Environmental Factors readers some of the water treatment plant’s efforts related to promoting the health and safety of vulnerable workers?
SB: WTP has a long history of assisting workers during major disaster events, whether we are talking about Hurricane Katrina or the oil spill in the Gulf, and we have built a body of knowledge based on these experiences that will enrich our training for climate-vulnerable workers.
We published a report in 2015 that assessed how climate change will affect workers’ health and safety. Also, we are hosting an upcoming workshop entitled “Preparing Workers for the Impacts of Climate Change through Training,” which will focus on reviewing our report and setting priorities for response to future climate-related events. [see second sidebar]. The report has helped us create more effective and relevant training, especially in low-income areas and communities of color, where climate-related weather events tend to have the greatest impact.
When we examine these events, we see that many communities have experienced multiple impacts over the years, such as frequent floods. Our goal is to build resilience so that people can protect themselves and their families while participating in emergency response activities.
Whether the WTP is tackling challenges related to climate-vulnerable individuals or helping to train the next generation of hazardous waste workers, I am confident that our large network of beneficiaries will continue to respond to the needs of their communities and achieve amazing results. I am proud of what our program has accomplished, and I look forward to many more years of success. WTP has evolved to be more impactful, more comprehensive, and more responsive than ever before, and this is a direct result of the collaborative approach we have adopted.
(Rick Woichick, Ph.D., directs the NIEHS and the National Toxicology Program.)
from San Jose News Bulletin https://sjnewsbulletin.com/the-environmental-factor-march-2022-worker-safety-and-sanitation-a-top-priority-for-the-niehs/
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