Laboratory Safety in Academia

Ashbrook, Peter C.

doi:10.1016/j.jchas.2012.12.010

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…Because lab safety culture can sometimes be a reflection of department or institution safety culture, ,, respondents were asked questions about safety initiatives at the department or university level. For example, a formal system to report and document near-misses is important to catch early signs/warnings or gauge the effectiveness of the safety program in place and continue to drive a strong safety culture. , About 92% of 26 respondents are familiar with a formal system to report safety incidents including near-misses to the department or university.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Toward Improved Safety Culture in Academic and Industrial Chemical Laboratories: An Assessment and Recommendation of Best Practices

Ezenwa

Talpade

Ghanekar

et al. 2022

ACS Chem. Health Saf.

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Numerous injuries and fatalities in chemical laboratories in the United States over the past few decades have suggested the need to take measures that go beyond mere compliance and toward promoting safer practices. A collaboration between the Center for Innovative and Strategic Transformation of Alkane Resources and Purdue Process Safety and Assurance Center assessed the current safety culture in chemical laboratories at their academic and industrial partners by conducting safety surveys. Key areas of improvement were identified from the responses to the safety surveys, which if addressed can mitigate the severity of safety incidents or prevent them from occurring. The findings indicate that a majority of the respondents from academia conduct comprehensive lab safety trainings (∼80%), have standard operating procedures for potentially hazardous activities (∼90%), regularly discuss safety-related issues during lab group meetings (∼85%), or are involved in routine safety inspections (∼85%). However, fewer of the academic respondents were aware of a database for safety incidents in their departments (∼50%) or utilized a standard safety review process for new experimental setups or modifications to existing setups (∼70%). The results from industry respondents suggest that improvements to commonly used hazard evaluation tools and increased accessibility to comprehensive databases can increase the effectiveness of hazard evaluation processes. Additionally, recommended best practices and guidelines are provided for researchers within the scientific community to develop key safety documentation that will both strengthen the safety culture and improve safety performance in their laboratories. Taken together, this safety initiative highlights the much-needed attention and effort that are beneficial to promote improved safety culture within academic and industrial chemical laboratories.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Toward Improved Safety Culture in Academic and Industrial Chemical Laboratories: An Assessment and Recommendation of Best Practices

Ezenwa

Talpade

Ghanekar

et al. 2022

ACS Chem. Health Saf.

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“…Many have pointed to principal investigators as a major barrier to changing safety practices. − Variables such as a lack of knowledge related to safety protocols, lack of funding to investigate safe practices, lack of time to engage in safe practices, and apathy toward changing behavior all contribute to this hurdle. ,,, The perception of PIs as all-knowing further exacerbates the problem, as principal investigators and researchers are assumed to be knowledgeable in all areas of their laboratory, including safety. Even if they sought assistance, where would they turn?…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Compressed Gas Safety at the University

Ngai

2020

J. Chem. Educ.

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Academic institutions are faced with the complex problem of accurately determining the hazards associated with a proposed or ongoing project. For many reasons, compressed gas safety can be a significant challenge at universities, especially those that involve research using many uncommon materials. This article is a call to action for implementing better safety practices when using compressed gases and helps to fill the gap on resources related to compressed gases. General operating procedures and resources for safe practices when using compressed gases are outlined in this article, as well as lessons learned from incidents involving compressed gases.

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