From nail and hair salon technicians to electronic waste recycling specialists and home healthcare providers, workers across the country are exposed to a wide range of different contaminants and technologies that are rapidly evolving. With funding from the NIEHS Superfund Research Program (SRP) Occupational Health and Safety Training Education Programs on Emerging Technologies, seven collaborative programs are developing multidisciplinary, online, and hands-on curricula related to these novel contaminants and technologies.

These programs are developing training courses, creating accessible tools for the public, and fostering the safe development and use of emerging technologies to promote worker safety.

Understanding Exposures in Diverse Work Settings

City University of New York: Protecting Nail Salon Workers from VOCs

Led by Brian Pavilonis, Ph.D., of the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Public Health, the New York Training Center for Emerging Technologies in Industrial Hygiene is creating training and research opportunities related to cutting edge sensor technologies. These new tools — including sensors, smartphone applications, and wearables devices — can be used to quantify contaminants in the workplace, such as volatile organic compounds (VOCs), particulate matter, heat exposure, noise, and ultraviolet radiation.

Researchers discussed VOC sampling results with nail salon workers. Project partner Adhikaar, a woman-led community and workers' center, connected researchers to Nepali-speaking salons. (Photo courtesy of CUNY)

In collaboration with the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, CUNY’s Queens College, and the CUNY Advanced Science Research Center, the program integrates graduate training programs for industrial hygiene students with community-based training for occupational safety and health trainers to identify, measure, and control workplace exposures.

For example, one project used low-cost sensors to track VOCs in nail salons. Nail salon workers, many of whom earn low wages and are immigrants, are regularly exposed to VOCs in the workplace. The team partnered with local organizations to measure baseline exposures to VOCs, inspect nail salon ventilation systems, and evaluate strategies to reduce exposure. The researchers found that proper ventilation limits VOC exposure and that low-cost sensors are a viable method for measuring contaminants.

University of Michigan: Improving Safety for Home Healthcare Workers

Led by Stuart Batterman, Ph.D., a team from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, University of Cincinnati, and Michigan State University created the Michigan-Ohio Occupational Research Education (MOORE) program. The group is examining approaches to assess indoor exposures, including exposure to aerosols and other contaminants, in school and healthcare settings. Their methods consider building characteristics like ventilation and filtration, as well as ergonomics.

MOORE students investigate the impact of caregiver posture and use of air purifiers to reduce smoke exposure for home healthcare workers. (Photo courtesy of MOORE.)

Through MOORE, the team has created a guide with best practices for online course development, developed several online courses and webinars, and offered a research camp to provide students with hands-on experience conducting research projects to understand exposures in residential healthcare environments. Home care providers may be exposed to smoke and unsafe respiratory contaminants when patient homes lack proper ventilation or filtration and may use postures that strain their bodies when attending to patients. One student camp project measured exposure to particulate matter under different scenarios and determined the air flow and efficiency of air filters to effectively reduce exposure. They also determined proper body positioning to reduce strain on caregivers.

Johns Hopkins: Working with Hair Salon Workers to Reduce Exposures

Under the leadership of Gurumurthy Ramachandran, Ph.D., of Johns Hopkins University, the Program on Occupational Health and Safety Education on Emerging Technologies - Mid Atlantic Partnership (POccET MAP) is creating a curriculum focused on additive manufacturing, nanobiotechnology, emerging disinfection technologies, and electronic cigarettes. The program is a collaboration between Johns Hopkins, University of Maryland, George Mason University, and Old Dominion University.

The POccET MAP team highlighted how women, and Black, Indigenous, and other minority populations, may be highly exposed to chemicals in salon settings. (Image courtesy of POccET MAP)

The group developed trainings, available on YouTube, for occupational health specialists, engineers and scientists related to detection technologies for emerging contaminants, exposure assessment and mitigation, disaster preparedness, and more. The video modules are being used to complement Johns Hopkins curricula and develop a new online master’s program in Product Stewardship of Emerging Technologies.

The program also offers hands-on experience for students and worker populations who may be disproportionately exposed to contaminants based on gender, race, or other factors. For example, hair salon workers were recruited for a study on chemical exposures in the workplace, highlighting the need for environmental justice to be embedded in exposure science. Another student project involved a pilot study of a PFAS treatment system, revealing operational complexities and co-contaminants that should be considered during the design phase.

Improving Curriculum Design and Access

University of Minnesota: Increasing Diversity in Industrial Health Programs

InTERACCT modules are available on YouTube, featuring topics such as assessing mixtures, selecting occupational exposure limits, types of additive manufacturing, and more.

Led by Susan Arnold, Ph.D., of the University of Minnesota, the Interdisciplinary Training, Education and Research Activities for Assessing and Controlling Contaminants from Emerging Technologies (InTERACCT) program is creating educational tools focused on anticipating and preventing hazards from emerging technologies, including additive manufacturing, nanomaterials, and novel drug delivery. The program, which includes collaborators from the University of Minnesota, University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), and the University of Iowa, aims to reach graduate and undergraduate industrial health students, adult learners, and practitioners. InTERACCT builds on work from the Midwest Emerging Technologies Public Health & Safety Training Program, which was previously funded by SRP.

In addition to developing open-access, web-based courses related to hazard recognition, exposure assessment, and cumulative risk assessment, the program is creating continuing education for professionals and research experiences for graduate students to apply their skills. The team is also offering a summer program to increase diversity in master’s programs while providing hands-on lab activities, field trips, and leadership training.

Purdue University: Integrating Cutting-Edge Methods for Distance Education

The Distance Education and Training Emerging Contaminants and Technologies (DETECT) program, led by Ellen Wells, Ph.D., at Purdue University, is extending the reach of their industrial hygiene safety courses by making them freely available online. DETECT focuses on identifying and characterizing emerging contaminants, including nanoparticles, PFAS, and harmful algal blooms, and on the use of emerging technologies to both assess and prevent potential hazards.

Along with collaborators at University of Toledo and the University of South Florida, the team developed a series of online courses, online labs, and in-person experiences. These materials prepare health and safety professionals to identify, characterize, and address various emerging hazardous contaminants.

The online labs will eventually have a virtual reality component to help participants better visualize the exercises, while in-person experiences offer demonstrations of the lab exercises as well as opportunities for interactive professional development.

University of California Los Angeles: Empowering Students with Hands-On Research

Candace Tsai, Ph.D., at UCLA, along with partners at UC Irvine, and California State University Fullerton and Long Beach, created a training program called the Occupational and Environmental Exposures and Work Practices for Nanomaterials and Electronic Products. The program uses digital learning techniques to teach participants about occupational exposures and effects.

This diagram demonstrates the process of cryogenic milling. Metals are eventually sorted out and recycled from the sand-like material in the third circle. (Photo courtesy of UCLA)

The program’s students, more than 50% of whom come from populations typically underrepresented in occupational health and science, learn multidisciplinary approaches to understand the health effects of nanomaterials and electronic products while designing their own research projects. For example, one student project focused on improving electronics recycling, which currently exposes workers to hazardous plastic, chemical, and metal wastes. Researchers evaluated cryogenic milling, a new method that grinds up electronic waste into nano-sized particles, to potentially reduce these exposures. The team found that, by grinding the electronic waste in a closed system, the cryogenic milling method reduced worker’s exposure to harmful elements in electronic waste. Cryogenic milling was also more efficient, environmentally sustainable, and financially feasible than current electronic recycling methods.

University of Utah: Improving Cross-Disciplinary Research Experiences to Address Biological Hazards

An image from a BioSTET module focused on decontamination. (Photo courtesy of BioSTET).

At the University of Utah, Darrah Sleeth, Ph.D. collaborates with researchers from six different institutions — including East Tennessee University, Texas A&M University, California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo, Weber State University, UCLA, and Montana Technical University — to build innovative trainings for biological hazards.

The program, called Biological Health and Safety Training in Emerging Technologies (BioSTET), facilitates skill development and provide cross-disciplinary research opportunities on curricula development and emerging technologies. So far, the team has developed 11 different training courses and has incorporated their curricula into courses across the participating universities.

The team partnered with Fulcrum labs to analyze and improve their digitized content and they deployed an extensive, innovative marketing strategy for the program.

To read more about SRP-funded work related to emerging contaminants, please refer to the following:

• The June 2023 Science Digest, featuring several multiproject centers focused on emerging contaminants.
• The June 2022 Science Digest, showing several individual research projects designing remediation strategies for emerging contaminants.
• The March 2022 Science Digest, focused on SRP-funded research on PFAS.