My motive for the first edition of this book was to provide a textbook for the next generation of OSH professionals to learn systematic methods that will help them throughout their career. As work progressed, I came to realize the book content could also be useful to anyone with OSH responsibilities in companies currently building or upgrading their OSH programs, including many companies located in later‐developing countries such as India and China.

My motive for this second edition was to enrich the book with more theory, numerous case examples, and references to new material. In using the first edition as a textbook, I learned several things from student feedback that convinced me to make some changes in the wording of two of the nine risk‐reduction strategies used throughout Parts IV and V. I have continued the rigorous definition of fundamental terms and added an explanation of four perspectives on causation of occupational injuries and diseases.

Most of the material in the book presents well‐established methods and practices familiar to professionals with broad backgrounds that include industrial hygiene, occupational safety, and occupational ergonomics – three specialties I collectively refer to as OSH. I included a few innovations that I believe OSH professionals and students will find useful, and at the same time, advance the profession.

I wrote this book for three types of readers. For students preparing for a career in OSH, the book can help them learn to approach OSH in a systematic manner. For people with OSH responsibilities in companies going through the process of upgrading their OSH programs, this book can serve as a resource to help pull together the program components needed to meet the basic safety and health needs of their employees. For OSH professionals who know everything about safety, health, and environment in the industrial sector where they work, reading this book may help them see how the OSH practices used in their industry are instances of the practices used in many other industrial sectors.

I continue with organizing the book into five parts: (I) background, (II) analysis methods, (III) programmatic methods for managing risk, (IV) risk reduction for energy sources, and (V) risk reduction for other than energy sources. Part I provides general background for appreciating the later chapters and clarifies the fundamental terms hazard, risk, and risk reduction. A section on concepts of causation has been added. Part II describes some systematic analysis methods used extensively in industries. It improves the explanation of cut‐set analysis and contains new material on bow‐tie diagrams and layers of protection analysis. Part III addresses management of OSH programs. The five chapters have been reordered to start with overall management of OSH programs, followed by chapters on broadly applicable programs and practices, incident investigation programs, error reduction methods, and the nine risk‐reduction strategies used extensively in subsequent parts of the book.

Part IV contains updated chapters on the hazard sources involving energy exchange – kinetic energy, electrical energy, acoustic energy, thermal energy, fires, explosions, pressure, electromagnetic energy, and severe weather and geological events. The chapter on kinetic energy has been extended and broken into sections on gravitational energy hazards, transportation hazards, and mechanical hazards. Case examples have been added to most of the chapters.

Part V continues with the same five chapters as the first edition but with substantial new content. These chapters address hazard sources other than energy sources – hazardous workplace conditions, chemical substances, biologic agents, musculoskeletal stressors, and the violent actions of people. A new coauthor for the chapters on chemical substances and biologic agents, Lorri Birkenbuel, CIH, has enriched and expanded the content. Each of these chapters points out applications of how known practices fit within the nine risk‐reduction strategies.

My thinking is this book differs from other books on OSH and system safety in three primary ways. First, unlike other books, this one uses a deductive approach – starting with fundamental definitions and nine risk‐reduction strategies, the book demonstrates that thousands of hazard control measures familiar to OSH professionals are instances of these strategies. Second, the book takes an international approach by not treating any particular set of regulations, directives, or standards as authoritative.

A third unique feature is treating as one field the presently distinguished specialties of occupational safety, industrial hygiene, and ergonomics. During my 50‐year career working in OSH, I have witnessed each specialty stubbornly fighting to maintain its own identity by holding its own conferences, sponsoring its own journals, and operating its own professional credentialing program. I would like to see this silo‐protecting practice replaced by a shift toward unifying into one overarching field. Although I do not use this book to expressly advocate for this position, I hope that reading the entire book will convince some readers to share my viewpoint.

It is my hope that professors who teach courses in occupational safety and health and/or system safety will adopt this book. It is appropriate for undergraduate seniors or graduate students who have previously completed introductory courses on OSH topics. Studying this book should provide students enough system safety for an OSH career and help them appreciate how the material learned in prior courses fits into a cohesive package. Students will find the book more relevant to OSH than books written for system safety professionals and doing the end‐of‐chapter exercises (as explained in Chapters 1–3) will help them improve their cognitive abilities for applying concepts, analyzing, creating, and evaluating.

I am fortunate to have a wonderful wife, Marian, who put up with my extended hours working on this second edition book project, and too few hours spent sharing the fun things in life. Our talented daughter Lea Jensen, an industrial hygienist, provided inspiration and ideas for this extended undertaking.

During my 50‐year career in Occupational Safety and Health, I have been fortunate to associate with some high‐quality people who enabled me to grow professionally. While working 22 years with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, I learned from several mentors and colleagues who I want to acknowledge. James Oppold, as Director of the Division of Safety Research, allowed me to develop new lines of research on the topics of safety training effectiveness, symbols on warning signs, stairway falls, machine safeguarding, and effects of climatic factors on safety‐related behavior. Some of the associates I worked most closely with were John Etherton, Timothy Pizzatella, James McGlothlin, and James Collins. After my NIOSH experiences, I joined a technical services company (UES, Inc.) where I enjoyed working with John Howard, Julian Christensen, Bill Askren, and Gary Williamson doing diverse projects on product safety, occupational safety, and ergonomics. In 1999, I joined the faculty of an educational institution now named Montana Technological University where I have enjoyed some wonderful and supportive associates in the Safety, Health, and Industrial Hygiene Department. I especially want to acknowledge the Department's current faculty team, consisting of the following exceptional colleagues and friends: Terry Spear, Julie Hart, Theresa Stack, Dan Autenrieth, Lorri Birkenbuel, and Dave Gilkey.

This book is accompanied by a companion website:

www.wiley.com/go/Jensen/RiskReductionMethods_2e

The website includes Solutions manual.

Scan this QR code to visit the companion website

Part I lays the foundation for the entire book. Chapter 1 describes how the present field of occupational safety and health (OSH) gradually reached its current status as a profession. It provides the author’s perspective on major contributions to the OSH profession from: law makers, specialists in system safety, the public health field, private organizations, and applied sciences. Chapter 2 delves into definitions of three terms used extensively in this book – hazard, risk, and risk reduction. Chapter 3 explains how the cognitive skills for effectively practicing OSH have changed from the days when having knowledge of regulations and standards was enough to the current need to have strong cognitive skills for analyzing, evaluating, and creating. The chapter also provides examples of common types of conceptual models and charting methods used in the book and the safety and health professions.

These background topics provide fundamental building blocks for the four subsequent parts of the book that provide the content applicable to the practice of OSH. Part II explains several practical methods from system safety for anticipating hazards, assessing risks, and analyzing systems encountered in occupational settings. Part III discusses programmatic and managerial methods for reducing risks. Part IV gets into the technical aspects of reducing risks associated with various forms of hazardous energy. Part V addresses risk reduction for occupational hazards not generally identified with a particular source of energy.