Occupational Health and Safety Professionals
Occupational health and safety professionals utilize their unique training and experience to promote safer and healthier workplaces for Minnesota’s workers. Each discipline addresses a specific need or aspect of occupational health and safety. These disciplines include occupational medicine physicians, occupational health nurses, industrial hygienists, and safety engineers. Occupational health and safety professionals work in clinics, hospitals, on job sites, at universities, and in government. This indicator represents the number of trained and educated professionals available to address the diverse and often unique issues associated with workplace environments and worker health in Minnesota.
To create this indicator, the number of board certifications and memberships for Minnesota for various professional associations were obtained from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. These associations included the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM), the American Association of Occupational Health Nurses (AAOHN), the American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA), and the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE). These organizations and associations represent different disciplines that individually and jointly promote occupational health and safety. In addition to the numbers of these occupational health and safety professionals, rates of these professionals are also calculated per 100,000 employed persons age 16 and older.
Number of Health and Safety Professionals by Discipline or Certification in Minnesota, 2003-2014*
| Professional Category | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 |
| Number of Board-Certified Occupational Medicine Physicians | 71 | 70 | 73 | 76 | 79 | 81 | 87 | 84 | * | 90 | * | 99 |
| Number of Members of the American College of Occ. and Env.Medicine (ACOEM) | 106 | 93 | 97 | 99 | 102 | 94 | 90 | 90 | * | 88 | 84 | 84 |
| Number of Board-Certified Occupational Health Nurses | 148 | 144 | 141 | 150 | 120 | 117 | 114 | 109 | * | * | 95 | 83 |
| Number of Members of the American Association of Occ. Health Nurses (AAOHN) | 162 | 176 | 184 | 150 | 138 | 142 | 116 | * | * | 77 | * | * |
| Number of Board-Certified Industrial Hygienists | 160 | 163 | 171 | 173 | 173 | 175 | 178 | 177 | * | 124 | 150 | 147 |
| Number of Members of the American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) | 232 | 230 | 236 | 231 | 220 | 294 | 227 | 129 | * | 220 | 180 | 33 |
| Number of Board Certified Safety and Health Professionals | 232 | 245 | 264 | 271 | 277 | 299 | 304 | 310 | * | 331 | 336 | 347 |
| Number of Members of the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) | 605 | 645 | 700 | 600 | 611 | 610 | 586 | 309 | * | 625 | 638 | 635 |
| Total | 1716 | 1766 | 1866 | 1750 | 1720 | 1812 | 1702 | 1208 | * | 1555 | 1483 | 1428 |
* Data unavailable, data unavailable for all groups for 2011
Rate of Occupational Health and Safety Professionals in Minnesota per 100,000 Workers, 2003-2014*
| Professional Category | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 |
| Number of Board-Certified Occupational Medicine Physicians | 2.6 | 2.5 | 2.6 | 2.7 | 2.9 | 3.0 | 3.2 | 3.1 | * | 3.2 | * | 3.5 |
| Number of Members of the American College of Occ. and Env.Medicine (ACOEM) | 3.8 | 3.3 | 3.5 | 3.5 | 3.7 | 3.4 | 3.3 | 3.3 | * | 3.2 | 3.0 | 2.9 |
| Number of Board-Certified Occupational Health Nurses | 5.3 | 5.1 | 5.0 | 5.3 | 4.3 | 4.3 | 4.2 | 4.0 | * | * | 3.8 | 2.9 |
| Number of Members of the American Association of Occ. Health Nurses (AAOHN) | 5.8 | 6.3 | 6.5 | 5.3 | 5.0 | 5.2 | 4.3 | * | * | 2.8 | * | * |
| Number of Board-Certified Industrial Hygienists | 5.8 | 5.8 | 6.1 | 6.2 | 6.2 | 6.4 | 6.6 | 6.5 | * | 4.5 | 5.3 | 5.2 |
| Number of Members of the American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) | 8.4 | 8.8 | 9.4 | 8.2 | 7.9 | 10.8 | 8.4 | 4.7 | * | 7.9 | 6.4 | 1.2 |
| Number of Board Certified Safety and Health Professionals | 8.4 | 8.8 | 9.4 | 9.6 | 10.0 | 11.0 | 11.3 | 11.4 | * | 11.9 | 11.9 | 12.2 |
| Number of Members of the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) | 21.8 | 23.0 | 24.9 | 21.3 | 22.0 | 23.3 | 21.7 | 11.4 | * | 22.5 | 22.7 | 22.3 |
| Total | 61.8 | 63.1 | 66.3 | 62.2 | 62.1 | 66.4 | 63.0 | 44.4 | * | 56.0 | 52.8 | 50.1 |
* Data unavailable, data unavailable for all groups for 2011
An analysis of the number of occupational health and safety professionals in specific disciplines between 2000 and 2014 showed different trends. While the number of occupational physicians, industrial hygienists, and occupational health and safety professionals has increased slightly, the number of occupational nurses has declined. This indicator makes use of data from professional organization membership rosters and may be an incomplete count of all individuals currently practicing in specific areas who are not be a member of these organizations. However, even with a potential undercount, this indicator provides some quantitative measure of the number of health and safety professionals available to the working population. Continued and increased efforts to recruit talented individuals to these career paths are necessary to ensure health and safety professionals are available for future employee populations.