Most environmental health issues involve a variety of elements with overlapping or distinct causes, stakeholder groups, and solutions. This includes environments found within workforce setting around the globe. In the United States, the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 "created the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to ensure safe and healthful working conditions for workers by setting and enforcing standards and by providing training, outreach, education and assistance" (United States Department, n.d.). 

Selecting an important, specific element of the issue is essential when formulating realistic ways to address and improve environmental problems. This specific aspect of the issue is known as the problem and can be defined in a concise problem statement. The problem statement includes the purpose of the problem-solving effort, defines its scope, and states the specific objective of the problem-solving effort in the form of a question. The three elements of the problem statement are:

2. Explaining how things should be.
4. Identifying a significant gap.
6. Asking a question about one major way to improve the current situation.

For example: Employees who work with lead have a right to expect that their health will be protected if their workplace adheres to the OSHA lead standard. However, the OSHA lead standard has not been updated since 1978, despite a great deal of new epidemiologic and toxicologic research about lead toxicity. Should the OSHA lead standard be revised, and if so, what should the new provisions be?

For this assignment:

• Identify one of the top 10 standards cited by OSHA as major issues within the workplace setting, as seen above.
• Identify a problem statement associated with the issue, as demonstrated in the example above. These sentences should be questions that you intend to explore in your research paper.
• In 3 to 4 double spaced pages, inform your reading audience about any specific policy(ies) related to your OSHA cited standards issue and how they are designed to protect workers. If no specific policy exists, describe in-brief your proposed steps to begin the conversation to create new protective policy for workers.

Reference:

United States Department of Labor. (n.d.). Occupational Safety and Health Administration: About OSHA. https://www.osha.gov/aboutosha

Evaluation Criteria:

• Identified one of the top 10 standards cited by OSHA as major issues within the workplace setting.
• Described a problem statement (2 to 3 sentences) associated with the issue.
• Discussed specific policy(ies) related to the identified OSHA cited standards issue and discussed how they are designed to protect workers.
• Described in-brief proposed steps to begin the conversation to create new protective policy for workers if one does not exist currently.
• Referenced supporting literature and information provided by credible resources.
• Utilized appropriate writing mechanics and information literacy.

Answer rating: 100% (QA)

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