Principles of Good Practice

Principles of Good Practice Definition

The recommended practices and performance established for a particular profession or function. Specific to the OEHS profession, principles of good practice are practical, proven, and available practices that provide robust and reliable performance to effectively protect workers and communities from unacceptable risks.

Purpose and Objectives

The protection of workers and communities depends on the performance of risk management programs. As currently implemented, the effectiveness of those risk protection programs is highly variable, resulting in excessive risk for many workers and communities, and hindering the realization of AIHA’s vision of “a world where all workers and their communities are healthy and safe”.

Principles of Good Practice define the recommended level of expected risk management practice and performance based on established professional norms, guidelines, standards, regulations, and proven practices. Through this effort, AIHA seeks to elevate the performance of all risk management programs, and in particular, those that are underperforming, by documenting a concise, easy-to-use summary of recommended practices for critical aspects of risk management programs, and practices and by providing tools to help OEHS professionals practice at those recommended levels of performance or better.

The advisory group addresses such matters as:

• Driving the overall effort to build out a Principles of Good Practice summary of risk-critical practices using the AIHA Framework for Documenting Principles of Good Practice (Appendix A).
• Engaging subject matter experts from AIHA volunteer groups (and other sources) to provide input.
• Identifying partnership opportunities for engaging appropriate expert input from groups beyond AIHA (e.g., ACGIH, NIOSH, BGC, IOHA).
• Establishing metrics for tracking progress.
• Updating and maintaining the Principles of Good Practice document as needed.

Composition of the Advisory Group

The advisory group is comprised of 8 to 10 members representing a cross-section of OEHS members from AIHA with expertise and experience covering a broad range of OEHS risk management programs and practices. Members from staff and additional partner organizations may be added as appropriate.

Each member serves up to a three-year term. Terms are staggered so that as members rotate off, they are replaced with new members.

The Advisory Group will also have an AIHA Board Liaison appointed by the AIHA President; this individual does not serve as Chair or Vice-Chair of the Advisory Group.

The AIHA President selects a Vice-Chair from among those committee members entering their second year of service. The Vice-Chair becomes the Chair in his/her third year of service. Terms commence and end at AIHce.

Roles and Responsibilities

To learn more about the roles and responsibilities of the advisory group, please see the AIHA Principles of Good Practice Advisory Group Charter document.

Membership - Ethical Principles

The AIHA and ACGIH are nonprofit voluntary professional membership associations dedicated to the advancement of the field of industrial hygiene and the protection of health and safety. Therefore, we support quality professional standards and practices and expect our respective members to meet such standards.

In support of these important purposes, we promote ethical professional practices and strongly encourage members to understand ethical responsibilities. As a matter of professional competence and public confidence, members are expected to conduct themselves consistent with applicable ethics standards, including those of the Board for Global EHS Credentialing (BGC). Please see the full document at Membership - Ethical Principles.

Questions?

For more information, please contact Michele Twilley, DrPH, CIH (Staff Liaison).