Welcome back to the Science of Safety Podcast. It’s hard to believe this season is coming to an end. In this episode, co-hosts Mark Reggers and Laurie Wells reflect back on some of the highlights from this first global season of the podcast. From selection fundamentals for respiratory protection, hearing protection, and fall protection to the science of fit. This season of the podcast has been full of fun, guests from around the world. best practices, and more. Listen in as Mark and Laurie drop some hints on the new line up of topics for next season.
The first global season of the Science of Safety Podcast is presented by the 3M Personal Safety Division. This is a podcast that is curious about the science and systems behind workplace health and safety with a focus on personal protective equipment (or PPE) used to help keep workers healthy and safe.
This global podcast series will hope to not only give you another educational tool that you can use to help increase your knowledge but also something that you can share with others in your organization and with your friends. The goal is to help provide a global perspective and foundation for those of you new to workplace health and safety and personal protective equipment (PPE) while also providing information for more experienced professionals and complex health and safety challenges.
You can listen, subscribe to, and share this podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google podcasts, Stitcher, and most major podcast apps and platforms.
If you have any questions or topic suggestions, you can get in contact with this podcast by contacting your local 3M office or visiting our worker health and safety website at 3M.com. If you’d like some assistance in your workplace when it comes to the appropriate selection, use, and maintenance of PPE please contact us today.
This year we are celebrating the 50-year anniversary of the first U.S. Government-approved 3M filtering facepiece respirator (a precursor to what is now known as the N95), and the 3M™ E-A-R™ Classic™ Earplug. To all of our customers who have trusted 3M brand PPE between then and now, thank you.
Around the world, we aim to help everyone get the job done safely today, tomorrow and in the future.
Below is the full transcript of the podcast:
Speaker 1:
The 3M Science of Safety Podcast is a free publication. The information presented in this podcast is general only should not be relied upon to make specific decisions. Listening to this podcast does not certify proficiency and safety and health. You should always seek the advice of a licensed or certified professional in relation to your specific work or task. Always consult the user instructions for any personal protective equipment you are using and follow local laws and regulations. Information presented is current as of the date of the podcast, and requirements can change in the future. 3M owns all rights of the podcast and production is strictly prohibited without permission.
Mark Reggers:
Welcome back to all our previous subscribers and new listeners. The Science of Safety Podcasts are presented by the 3M Personal Safety Division. This is a podcast that is curious about the science and systems behind workplace health and safety with a focus on personal protective equipment or PPE used to help keep workers healthy and safe. I’m Mark Reggers, one of your co- hosts with the fantastic Laurie Wells with me. We are occupational health and safety professionals who like to ask the questions why, how, and please explain. Whether you’re a safety, professional, occupational, or industrial hygienist, someone with any level of worker health and safety responsibility in your workplace, a user of PPE or a health and safety nerd, then this is the podcast for you. Hey Laurie, how are things in Loveland, Colorado?
Laurie Wells:
Hey Mark. It’s so good to hear your voice. Actually, it’s getting quieter here, Mark.
Mark Reggers:
What’s that?
Laurie Wells:
It’s, well, it’s the change of the season, right? We’re going from having our windows covered with screens to storm windows getting ready for the change of the season. So, we’re going from those sounds of those, the geese honking, flying overhead to the, preparing for that crunch of the snow under your snowshoe, kind of a kind of sounds. How about you? What are, what’s going on in your world?
Mark Reggers:
Sounds and seasons we’re sort of the opposite. Being on the under area of the world, we’re starting to get a bit warmer and we’re sort of a month away from summer, so starting to start to hear those cicadas going in the background. There is another type of noise. We’ve got the birds behind us and the gum trees behind our house. So interesting way to think of things when you put in that perspective, as you said, and it’s crazy to think that we’re wrapping up our very first global season of the science or safety podcast. Where did that time go?
Laurie Wells:
I don’t know. But the change at the season happens, whether we’re aware of it or not, doesn’t it? It certainly has been a great season meeting all of our guests from many parts of the world, and when we think back about it, the seasons we’ve had our colleagues on from the United States, from Canada, from the UK as far away as China, and yes, in fact Australia. It’s been so much fun talking with them and learning all about the selection of respiratory protection, hearing protection, and fall protection. So, Mark, question, do you remember the A B Cs of fall.
Mark Reggers:
The A, B, C D, Es and Fs of fall protection? I’d like to say that I do, because there is a great analogy for each of those letters with A being the anchorage B, the body harness C, the connectors D for descent and rescue E for education, a big one there. And last but not least, fall protection for tools. That’s how well are stuck in my head from chatting with our wonderful guests.
Laurie Wells:
Awesome. I’m impressed. You’ve done a nice job, Mark. So yeah, the guests were on those episodes were Greg Peterson and Heidi Lopez Hidalgo. So great job getting more detail around those ABCs. They’ve also explained the concept of hierarchy of controls as it applies to fall protection. The hierarchy of controls is a pretty common theme because we also heard it for respiratory protection from Dr. Nikki Vars McCullough, and for hearing protection with both of our guests, Mohamed Saleem and Bev Borst.
Mark Reggers:
I mean, the concept of the hierarchy controls is very well known and established in the occupational health and safety world. When we think about it, once you understand what the worker is being exposed to, whether that’s noise, it could be airborne dusts, gases, vapors. It could be a risk from working at heights. The employer can develop a plan to reduce those exposures or that risk using those hierarchy of controls. Now, we learned this season through these episodes, there are many different types of controls. I’m going to go through them now, being elimination, substitution, isolation, engineering, administration, and finally PPE. Now, a simple way that I’ve always remembered, I can’t remember when I learned this, but if you think about Every Sunday I Eat Apple Pie is a way to remember those different hierarchy of controls. I’m a simple fellow and those simple things work for me, but it is that common framework that can be applied to different types of hazards in all workplaces.
Laurie Wells:
Oh, that’s a great trick. Mark, I eat
Mark Reggers:
Every Sunday. No, every I
Laurie Wells:
Apple
Mark Reggers:
Pie.
Laurie Wells:
Apple. Pie. I like it. Well, another topic that I know both of us were excited about this season were our episodes focused on the science of fit. Jessica Tredinnick and Sky Liu from China walked us through the science of fit for respiratory protection and for hearing protectors. And Mark, I know we both share a professional passion for fit testing, and it’s certainly been fun sharing our own professional interests and experiences with our listeners this season. So, everybody knows I’m all about ears and everybody knows that you’re all about lungs.
Mark Reggers:
I like it. That is definitely true. And when we think about, you know, PPE fit is such an incredibly important aspect of PPE selection and achieving protection for respirators and for hearing protectors, as well. Is one thing to select an appropriate model, be it a respirator or earmuff, but without that fit, it’s really important that respirator or hearing protector adequately fits the individual wearer to achieve the required level of protection. Maybe it’s attenuation in your world of things or that seal thinking about protection factors in my world of things.
Laurie Wells:
Absolutely. I know that one earplug style will not fit every individual the same way. And when it comes to ear canals, they’re all different, even on one side of the head to the other. And we learned the same thing as true for respiratory protection. When we think about the diversity of the facial shapes, the sizes and the characteristics.
Mark Reggers:
Spot on. And I encourage all our listeners, if you did miss any of those Science of Fit episodes to go back and listen and learn more about fit testing, the factors that affect fit and those best practices for your workers in your workplaces. And one of the things that I think about when I reflect back on this very first global season is that common theme of understanding local regulatory requirements wherever our listeners are in the world. It’s fantastic that we have listeners from all over the world, but we need to appreciate that in all these countries, employees have a legal responsibility to evaluate exposure to the hazards in the workplace and control those hazards, whatever they may be. Those regulatory requirements are usually in the form of government standards or from agencies with enforcement authority. And so those requirements can vary based on geography and also sometimes by the type of industry they may be in. When you think about construction, mining, utilities could be chemical oil and gas, pharmaceutical, heavy manufacturing, or maybe even transportation. I mean, that’s just naming a few there.
Laurie Wells:
Yeah, that’s right, Mark. It’s very important. And in addition to that, there are often applicable guidelines and standards which may not be requirements like legal requirements that are enforceable by market surveillance or inspectors, but still they’re often followed as a good practice. We have socially responsible employers that choose to make their own company policies go beyond the minimum requirements of the legal system. So really, really important that all of our listeners understand what jurisdiction they’re covered by and then again, to look beyond that, to look at some best practice recommendations that are workable and specific to your work site. So Mark, this has really been a lot of fun. I really enjoyed this as we’ve gone through the season and we’re winding down now this season, our first season of the podcast. So I’m wondering if you might be tempted to give us a sneak peek into what we’re planning for next season.
Mark Reggers:
I am tempted, but I don’t want to give away too much Laurie, but I think we can share a little bit about what we’re planning to dive into next year when we think about hazard and exposure assessment awareness. We’re going to discuss some specific hazards and applications, maybe welding hazards, working in confined spaces, something of interest to you, complex noise environments, and silica is a very common key hazard around the world. We’ll also be discussing the science of fit, continuing that theme, but this time for fall protection harnesses and considerations for the selection of eye, face and head protection. You know, through this podcast, we hope to continue to give all our listeners another educational tool that they can use to help increase their knowledge, but also something that can be shared with others within their organizations or other health and safety networks or communities they may be involved with.
Laurie Wells:
Wow, that’s pretty ambitious. You listed off quite a long list of intriguing topics there. So, we hope all of our listeners are as excited as we are for the next season of the Global 3M Science of Safety Podcast. So be watching out for new episodes coming soon. So, Mark, I’d also like to conclude by saying a personal thank you to you for all of your enthusiasm, your great ideas, and for sharing your knowledge with me as well as our listeners. It’s certainly been a delight and I really look forward to next season.
Mark Reggers:
Looking forward to 2023. And also thank you to you for sharing your experience, for coming from different worlds of things, from hearing and respiratory. But it’s been such a wonderful time doing this podcast and talking to these wonderful people. So can’t wait for 2023. Bring it on. I say,
Laurie Wells:
Hey, hey and Mark. There’s really a lot of people that work behind the scenes. As you know from any project, there’s people out front, but there’s also the people that are working diligently. So, shout out to all of those who have helped us to make this successful. There’s a number of them, so we won’t go through their names, but really know any project, there’s lots of people helping out.
Mark Reggers:
Absolutely couldn’t agree more.
Laurie Wells:
Thanks for listening, everyone. You can listen, subscribe to, and share this podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcast, and most major podcast apps and platforms. If you have
questions, topic suggestions, or you’d like some assistance in your workplace when it comes to the appropriate selection, use, and maintenance of PPE, you can get in contact with this podcast by contacting your local 3M office or visit our website at mmm.com. This year we are celebrating the fiftieth-year anniversary of the first NIOSH approved 3M filtering face piece respirator, and the 3M EAR classic earplug. To all of our customers who have trusted the 3M brand PPE between then and now, thank you . Around the world we aim to help everyone get the job done safely today, tomorrow, and in the future. Thanks for listening and have a safe day. Stay safe out there, Mark.
Mark Reggers:
Stay healthy, Laurie and everyone listening, see you next year.
Laurie Wells:
Hear you next year. <laugh>, <laugh>.