Interested? Join this Group!

What is the Museum and Cultural Heritage Industry?

Museums, Historical Sites, and Similar Institutions. This subsector encompasses industries involved in the preservation and exhibition of objects, sites, and natural wonders of historical, cultural, and/or educational significance.

Museum professionals. Conservators, curators, collections managers, registrars, and exhibit installers routinely encounter unique occupational hazards in the care, handling, and display of collections.

OEHS professionals. Collections hazards and occupational exposure scenarios are not intuitively obvious, so collaboration between Collections and OEHS professionals is critical to identifying and managing these specialized risks.

Common Hazards in Museum Collections

  • Chemical Hazards:
    • Formaldehyde fixatives (used in fluid specimens)
    • Radioactive dyes
    • Legacy pesticides like arsenic and mercury compounds (no longer used due to toxicity)
    • Solvents, acids, bases, and fine powders used in conservation
    • Material & Artifact Risks:
      • Degraded or combustible historic apothecary items
      • Asbestos in industrial or aeronautic artifacts
      • Environmental & Fieldwork Hazards:
        • Trenching, digging, and diving during field collection activities
        • Silica dust exposure during paleo-specimen preparation

      Where Our Work Has Impact

      Our collaborative efforts support a variety of institutions and workplaces, including:

      • Museums of all types and sizes
      • Art galleries
      • Archives
      • Historic houses
      • National, State, and local parks
      • Nature centers and botanical gardens
      • University teaching collections
      • Private industry and government historical holdings
      • Conservation labs and private studios
      • Zoos and aquariums

      Goals, Objectives, and Key Projects

      The M&CHI WG focuses on protecting workers in the Museum and Cultural Heritage Industry through awareness, allied networking, training, education, technical resources, collaborating with underserved communities, and producing evidence-based guidelines.

      Our Objectives and Projects align with the AIHA 2025-2027 Strategic Plan, particularly: Pursuit of Knowledge, Advancing the Profession, and Impact and Awareness with our allied organization professional partners.

      • Raise Awareness / Promote Allied Networking
        • Participate in mutual conferences and contribute to peer-reviewed OEHS and Cultural Heritage publications.
        • Encourage local networking between AIHA Local Sections and regional Conservation Guilds/Associations.
        • Assist AIC to further develop their Historic House Hazard Self-Assessment Survey tools and information resources, especially for sites without easy access to OEHS consultants.
      • Training and Education
        • Partnering with AIC and AIHA Laboratory Health and Safety Committee to develop Collection-Based Hazards and Risk Control Training videos & Safety for Conservation Labs Course.
        • Continue to support the OEHS Core Curriculum academic initiative, offering health and safety training to museum studies programs and providing museum occupational learning opportunities for public health students.
      • Promote OSHA’s On-site Consultation Program Services to Museum and Cultural Heritage Facility Employers
        • Working in teams per state, the WG helps advertise OSHA On-site Consultation Programs, to help identify and address hazards and establish or improve safety and health programs for small businesses (250 employees or fewer or less than 500 employees nationwide), including non-profit museums and cultural heritage industry small businesses.
        • Provide assistance to the OSHA Directorate of Standards and Guidance Office to develop M&CHI Fact Sheets on museum-collection task hazards and controls to improve OEHS communication with this underserved industry.
      • Provide OEHS Assistance to Native American, Alaska Native, and other Indigenous Communities
        • Provide survey and training assistance to tribal communities receiving contaminated repatriated sacred/cultural items per the U.S. law, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA).
        • Collaborate with the Contamination & Pesticides Repatriation Informal Working Group, a consortium of native tribes, museums, conservation labs, and federal agencies.
      • Produce Evidence-Based Best Practice Guidelines
        • These guidelines and occupational risk management tools will aid both OEHS and cultural heritage professionals in conducting hazard assessments and implementing controls for work tasks and public exhibit space.
        • Collaborate with the AIHA Exposure Assessment Strategies Committee to create a Museum Exposure Sampling Database by collecting, statistically analyzing, and publishing on exposure rates and control measure effectiveness within cultural heritage worksites.
      • Contributions to AIHA: Defining the Science Research Initiatives
        • WG members, including NIOSH experts, are studying psychosocial trauma causes and intervention measures effectiveness in collection care. The goal of this project is to understand challenges found in Museum, Zoo, and Aquarium workers when working with disturbing situations, objects, and narratives.
        • In 2025-6, WG will address its own DTS Submittal: Developing easily accessible worker self-monitoring protocols.

      Join Our Working Group

      Are you a museum or OEHS professional? Your expertise can make a real difference in collections care and workplace safety!

      Our members range from students to career-long professionals, with a varied mix of OEHS practitioners, conservators, and collection managers. We are a friendly and active group, with engaging Zoom meetings on the 3rd Friday of every month.

      You can choose the level of involvement that fits your availability and provides you with tools to improve your own professional needs by:

      • Joining a project team: learn from each other and produce real-world tools to protect workers.
      • Participating in monthly meetings and suggesting other areas of concern to explore.
      • One and done micro-volunteering tasks as needs arise.
      • Stepping up to a leadership role (Secretary-elect, Secretary, Vice Chair, Chair).

      Interested? Join Us!

      We look forward to working together to advance health and safety in the museum and cultural heritage industry!

      This Working Group is a productive allied partnership between AIHA, the American Institute for Conservation (AIC), the OSHA On-Site Consultation Program (via the AIHA-OSHA Alliance), and CSHEMA (Campus Safety, Health and Environmental Management Association).

      For more information, contact one of our officers:

      • Chair Brandy Howard, PE, CIH, CSP; Senior Project Manager, Terracon Consultants Inc.; [email protected]
      • Past Chair Kelsey Babik, MPH, CIH; Tidewater, Inc.; [email protected]
      • Vice Chair Raquel Huffman, ASP, CSP; Research Safety Specialist, University of Michigan; [email protected]
      • Secretary Gina Agron, M.S.; Health Consultant, AKOSH C&T; [email protected]
      • Secretary-Elect Kerith Schrager, M.S.; Objects Conservator, The Found Object Art Conservation; [email protected]
      • R&D Officer Mark Wilson, DC, PhD; Clinical Assistant Professor, Purdue University; [email protected]

      AIHA Awards

      • Outstanding Volunteer Group (2020, 2021, 2022)
      • 2020 Outstanding Project Team (with AIHA IPRWG): Cultural Heritage Emergency Preparedness and Response.
      • 2021 Outstanding Project Team: Interdisciplinary Teaching and Experiential Learning Opportunities Between Museum Studies and OEHS Campus Programs
      • 2023 Shining Star Award.
      • 2024 Project Team Excellence Award: Advancement & Dissemination of Knowledge.

      Awards Granted by the M&CHI Working Group

      The Health and Safety Virtual Exhibit of the Year Award acknowledges the power of an instructive, visually appealing virtual exhibit to tell a story about occupational and environmental health and safety issues. Through this award, the M&CHI WG seeks to encourage others to identify or develop other health and safety-related virtual exhibits.

      • The 2024 recipients: Yale University Library Online Exhibitions “Selling Smoke Virtual Exhibit” and a collaboration of a team of students, faculty, and staff from three Atlanta-based institutions: Georgia State University, Emory University, and the David J. Sencer CDC Museum. “Ebola Virtual Exhibit”

      The Cultural Heritage Health and Safety Advocate Award recognizes an individual, a group of individuals, or an organization (represented by its Senior Leadership) that has demonstrated extraordinary leadership and commitment toward the improvement of occupational health and safety for cultural heritage professionals.

      • The 2021 recipient: Eryl P. Wentworth, former Executive Director of the American Institute for Conservation.
      • The 2023 recipient: Monona Rossol, MS, MFA; Director of Arts, Crafts, and Theater Safety (ACTS), New York.
      • The 2024 recipient: Nancy Nash, Regional Office Consultation Program Officer, OSHA Chicago Region, U.S. Department of Labor.

      Resources

      Publications
      Presentations
      Relevant to the Cultural Heritage Profession
      Topics Safety