As a member of the SME Health & Safety Division’s executive committee in 2020, Emily Haas heard from a number of members that SME needed an updated safety and health handbook. Haas proposed the idea to the SME Books Department, and once the idea was approved she went to work, recruiting 89 authors and 69 peer reviewers. It took a little more than three years, paused by the pandemic, but the final product, Mine Safety and Health Handbook: Approaches from the Field, will be unveiled at the SME Booth at the upcoming MINExpo International trade show in Las Vegas, NV. It is also available for preorder at the SME Bookstore at https://store.smenet.org/22medcg/.
“The primary audience includes frontline safety and health professionals and leaders, including soon-to-be and current certified mine safety and health professionals (CMSPs),” said Haas.
The handbook has technical information on theories and frameworks that seeks to advance the tangible knowledge around health and safety management, which is critical to implementing safety programs and practices in the field. “Additionally, updated case studies and research around fundamental mine safety and health hazards, risk management and safety systems, leadership, regulations and other professional skills, such as training and communication, are all included in the Body of Knowledge covered in CMSP certification courses and can serve as a useful complementary resource for either those pursuing a CMSP certification or current CMSPs trying to sustain knowledge and skills. However, the handbook also offers a refreshing approach for interdisciplinary theory to practice research in the mining industry that will appeal to practitioners, researchers, instructors/students, and safety and health advocates,” Haas added.
Pulling together a handbook that covers such a range of topics was no easy task. Haas found authors representing industry, academia, government and public sector entities from the United States, Australia, Canada, South America, Hungary and South Africa as well as an equally impressive group of editors from the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Turkey, Indonesia, Australia, South Africa and Denmark.
“The combination of hearing about the need for a health and safety handbook for several years and progressing my own research designing and executing workplace interventions, I wanted to not only fill this gap for members but also felt like I could provide a holistic view when recruiting for and editing the book to ensure a systems approach was evident in tying the topics together,” said Haas.
Collectively, the many talents of the authors and editors were brought together to create a handbook that not only shares current best practices but also presents a systems approach that will be able to adapt to future challenges and opportunities.
“The mining industry will continue to change and advance as we discover and better utilize new tools, processes and technologies. So, if the handbook only focused on providing updates to longstanding and emerging safety and health hazards, it would quickly become dated. Although this handbook elucidates new knowledge in these areas, my hope is that the systems approach taken by the authors throughout each chapter provides adaptable approaches to risk management that can be applied to any scenario,” said Haas. “If the handbook can serve as a guide to improve the ways we observe, critically think, challenge and lead in the field, I believe the safety and health of our workers will improve.”
Mine Safety and Health Handbook: Approaches from the Field, edited by Emily J. Haas, Ph.D. is available for preorder at the SME Bookstore at https://store.smenet.org/22medcg/. n
