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What You’re Reading reviews the most-viewed posts and articles from The Synergist, our two weekly newsletters, and SynergistNOW over the previous month. The topics that captured our readers’ attention in February included a decrease in federal OSHA’s inspection workforce, fit testing for hearing protective devices, suggestions for acclimatizing workers to heat, and applying neuroscience to improve worker safety.  

Most read in Synergist Newswire:

Trump’s Workplace Safety Chief Calls New Inspectors Top Priority

The number of OSHA inspectors fell three straight years and reached a five-year low at the end of fiscal year 2025. To reverse this trend, “we’ll be looking at actively hiring,” OSHA Administrator David Keeling recently told Bloomberg Law. The agency currently has one inspector for every 84,000 workplaces in the United States. Keeling also addressed the increase in silicosis cases among workers in shops that fabricate engineered stone, saying that he’d like the federal agency to work with state programs to better target fabrication businesses, which are classified as part of a larger industry that includes natural stone.

Most read in The Synergist Weekly:

OSHA Publishes Guidance on Hearing-Protector Fit Testing

OSHA’s latest safety and health information bulletin explains the types of hearing protector fit-testing systems and emphasizes the importance of fit testing for workers to achieve needed attenuation. When properly sized and inserted, hearing-protective devices allow workers to hear important communications while blocking hazardous noise. Read more on AIHA.org.

Most read in the digital Synergist:

Acclimatization in Occupational Heat Stress Management: Suggestions for an Acclimatization Plan

Acclimatization increases heat tolerance. As the authors suggest in this feature story, acclimatization should include exposures to heat stress on successive workdays, and each exposure should be at least two hours of normal work in the hot environment. They discuss the differences between acclimatization practices for workers newly introduced to a work site and those who are returning to work after short absences, and present calculations for determining the percent of work that should include heat exposure in the initial days after a worker starts or returns to their job.

Most read on SynergistNOW:

Designing Brain-Friendly Workplaces

David Eagleman, one of the world’s leading neuroscientists, will deliver the opening keynote at AIHA Connect 2026 in New Orleans. Eagleman may be familiar to readers as the author of The New York Times bestseller Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain, a contributor to NPR and BBC, or the host of the podcast "Inner Cosmos." In this exclusive interview with SynergistNOW, Eagleman discusses his ongoing research, what he’s learned from delivering scientific material to a wide audience, and what he hopes AIHA Connect attendees take away from his address.

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