THE INTERNATIONAL OCCUPATIONAL HYGIENE ASSOCIATION (IOHA)

WORKSHOP ON THE CERTIFICATION OF OCCUPATIONAL HYGIENISTS

Blackpool : 27 March 1995

This is an informal note of views of individuals expressed at a Workshop to clarify and expand upon a review by IOHA of the world's hygiene certification schemes, and to help IOHA develop a policy in this area. The opinions are those of individuals and not necessarily their organisations. Since the workshop there has been movement in this area. In the UK, the Institute of Occupational Hygienists (IOH) has merged with the British Examining Board in Occupational Hygiene (BEBOH) to form the British Institute of Occupational Hygienists (BIOH). IOHA is in the process of updating its knowledge of certification schemes. Anyone wishing to act in relation to a particular certification scheme is strongly advised to contact the national body responsible for a current and definitive view of requirements.

Welcome from the President of IOHA-Linnea Lillienberg

The President welcomed participants to the workshop and noted with pleasure that representatives of all existing certification bodies around the world were present. She said that the workshop was a first effort to examine the comparability of professional qualifications for hygienists. She felt that the workshop was a historical landmark and that international collaboration on the certification of occupational hygienists was an attainable goal.

Introduction by the Chairman of the Workshop-Paul Oldershaw

The Chairman explained that the workshop was not intended to challenge existing schemes for the certification of hygienists but rather to provide a platform for an exchange of information and in particular to examine what worked and what didn't. Many new hygiene societies were appearing around the world but that, although the discipline of occupational hygiene was growing fast, the discipline was not widely known outside the profession. There was however broad acceptance of the need to act against occupational disease and other professions were involved in delivering a hygiene service. He invited the workshop to consider what is meant by competence in occupational hygiene and the extent to which certification bodies guaranteed this, how civil liability is dealt with and how the maintenance of competence is handled. Competence was particularly important in hygiene in that standards were often not absolute but required judgement.

The workshop was responding to world-wide pressure to accommodate differing certification schemes and to incorporate mutually acceptable views on such issues as training, skills and experience. It was important to recognise and to react to the need for occupational hygienists and not to be unjustifiably restrictive. There is a need for the development of systems for the mutual recognition of criteria and for the accommodation of international equivalents. It is important to recognise how associations had converged or diverged over recent years and how this was influenced by the different legal and cultural environments in which they operate. There are many hygiene judgements to be made and that the training needed to make these judgements properly would vary. It was hoped that the workshop would discuss many of these factors and be able to lead to a structure acceptable to everyone without threatening existing schemes. The workshop would develop a declaration of agreements reached as a basis for IOHA to move forward. He then moved a vote of thanks forAlex Burdorf for his work in the production of the IOHA survey entitled "Certification of Occupational Hygienists - A Survey of Existing Schemes Throughout the World"

Certification Schemes Throughout the World-Alex Burdorf

The rapporteur for the IOHA survey stated simply that industry wanted someone who could do the job. He codified this as essentially four instruments of quality:

Most associations use some form of certification i.e. US (ABIH), UK (IOH) [now BIOH], Canada (CRBOH), Italy (ICII) and The Netherlands (SCA). State licensing is very important in the USA. Usually, more than one level of qualification is accommodated.

It is obviously important to try to avoid building international barriers through such requirements. Indeed, some are already present. There is more common ground than at first appeared to be the case. Most schemes are based upon an academic background, experience (for example, a number of years in specified environments) and an examination. Several maintenance programmes are in operation with the oldest of these, in the USA, based upon a six year cycle, serving as a model for many others. The main conclusions of the review are:

With the development of the profession in mind, some type of mutual recognition of professional occupational hygienists is essential for the advancement of the discipline and, given the results of the review, an attainable objective. In this regard the following objectives needed to be considered:

Discussion

Paul Oldershaw asked whether certification was associated in general with a post graduate qualification in hygiene following on from an undergraduate non hygiene core competence or with an undergraduate education in occupational hygiene.

Alex Burdorf replied that the first of these was mostly the case. Typically, a person with an undergraduate degree in chemistry would study occupational hygiene for a Masters degree. In most countries people did not study occupational hygiene for a first degree.

Barry Bord struck a note of caution, that what is being observed now is what occurred in the past. Whilst this is obviously important, it may not reflect the present dynamic situation (for example, both the UK and Dutch situations were changing). He said that we must try to look forward.

Paul Oldershaw thought it important not simply to define standards in the image of particular associations unless there were good reasons for doing so.

Dave Verma explained that university education in occupational hygiene in Canada had been available since about 1978 but that the output did not fill the need for hygienists. A possibility was to move eventually to a Masters degree in occupational hygiene as the norm but this was a long way off. The need for flexibility in defining what was meant by the term occupational hygienist must be maintained.

Larry Birkner said that it was important to consider ISO 14000 when examining the internationalisation of core performance qualifications for people in the environmental professions.

Alex Burdorf agreed and in addition drew attention to ISO 9000. Any new scheme would need to be compatible with these standards but he pointed out that the main driving force was the comparison of different schemes. The discipline had its own responsibilities and the focus was on professional hygienists. He noted that, even in this context, the review had fielded differing responses to the same question from people within the same scheme!

Harry Ettinger asked whether a first (Bachelors) degree was in general a minimum requirement.

Alex Burdorf replied that this was the case in most schemes but a few allowed exceptional routes to certification without such a qualification.

Roy Covert said that the US ABIH had now closed this door and that the only route left to certification was via formal qualifications.

Barry Bord pointed out that in the UK (BEBOH and IOH) [now merged as BIOH] the doors to certification not involving formal qualification had been left open - just! He thought that the workshop should recognise the differing educational and cultural environments in which the different schemes were located. The meaning and status of the term "first degree" were different in different countries and it may be possible to accept apparent differences between schemes because of this. In any event it would be unwise to be arbitrary.

Vittorio Prodi explained that in Italy a university degree in science or engineering was mandatory but that candidates with lesser qualifications could gain entry to the association as industrial hygiene technicians.

Paul Oldershaw asked if there was a bar to stop people at a lower grade in such systems progressing to the higher grade.

Alex Burdorf explained that there were usually set standards for each level of certification and that normally people had to go back to school to gain the appropriate qualification for the higher grade before being allowed to progress to it; BEBOH seemed to be an exception.

Dave Verma said that in Canada a science or engineering degree was the minimum entry requirement with the exception that until 1997 a non-degreed applicant could enter by an occupational hygiene examination.

Vittorio Prodi explained that in Italy the association responded to both qualifications and years of responsibility (experience). He was of the view that these two aspects converged.

Paul Oldershaw asked for clarification of the Australian situation which had been referred to in the survey as a mixture of certification and registration, that is, onerous requirements for membership within an informal system.

Warren Smith noted that there had been a change in the description of the Australian scheme between the first and the final draft of the review. He said that the scheme was more than registration. The requirements amounted in effect to a certification scheme which lacked the formal process for defining entry in favour of interview. This procedure left the association open to accusations of arbitrarily excluding some applicants.He felt that, although a first degree was important, competence was even more so and there was a need to move towards a more formal definition of this. He responded to a question fromHarry Ettinger by saying that it was too soon to require written examinations in Australia but that such a requirement would not necessarily follow the US model.

Sybrand van der Meulen explained that in the Netherlands a programme of four years academic study in occupational hygiene and environmental sciences was now available. In answer to a question fromJeff Friar he anticipated that this would be the only route available in the Netherlands in due course to certification as an occupational hygienist. He responded to a question fromDave Verma by saying that this process would eventually produce enough hygienists to satisfy demand.

Dick Heederik thought that these matters were not that predictable and he was of the opinion that the university and polytechnic programmes in the Netherlands would eventually merge. He anticipated a substantial investment in research for the PhD in this area. In response to a question fromPaul Oldershaw he said that a Masters degree could take four and a half years (five and a half years for industry based candidates in the technical universities; five and a half years for a Masters in environmental sciences) and a further four years for a PhD.

Core Elements of Certification-Roy Covert

The President of ABIH ran through his own impressive career in industrial hygiene mentioning in particular the ABIH international collaboration programme between the USA, Europe, Hong Kong, Mexico etc. The ABIH certification philosophy was based uponeducation, experience andthe assessment of competence.

Education was described as broadly based in a scientific discipline containing elements of problem solving. It may be multidisciplinary but it must be based upon a well-defined, university, peer-reviewed curriculum. The curriculum should be technology based but supported by liberal arts and business topics (to produce a rounded individual). The minimum requirement was described as a Bachelor's degree (four to five years) followed by an advanced degree such as a Masters degree (two to three years - a doctorate would take longer). ABIH recognised the multidisciplinary nature of industrial hygiene and if a candidate did not have a degree in a cognate science the Board operated thenow very important60:15 Rule . Such a candidate must have completed sixty semester hours in a combination of the scientific disciplines; fifteen semester hours must be completed in these disciplines in the advanced phases of the degree (third and fourth years). This was an objective appraisal with little room for subjective assessment.

Experience was technological but also professional, that is, requiring the interpretation of available data and the prescription of controls; data gathering was not considered to be enough. These requirements were without regard to Government (consensus) regulation. Fifty percent or greater of a candidate's time needed to be spent in the practice of occupational health and testimonials to this effect and to the quality of the work were required from both the candidate's supervisor and a certified occupational hygienist in a position to judge. Examples of a candidate's work were needed to assist and clarify and may suffice for other aspects in some circumstances.

Assessment of Competence was based upon a model of what an industrial hygienist actually did. Role Delineation Task Analysis (RDTA) was used involving several practising hygienists to establish three different sets of entrance criteria for three different levels:

The chemical practice level might involve much information based work in laboratories but was essentially pitched at the technologist whereas the comprehensive practice level required wide experience of the discipline. The examination was weighted in the direction of the applicant's experience and structured as follows:

The multiple choice option for the written part of the examination was considered better in part because the USA is such a large country and the number of applicants is also very large.

The Board considered that, although work in rigidly controlled areas or work of a "ritualistic nature" may be highly technical and was very important, such work is limited and pitched at the technologist level. Nevertheless, it may be useful as a springboard to the structured gathering of wider experience and a short accreditation period (two years in the case of asbestos work) was available for this purpose. The board had had only mixed success in codifying and categorising competency in limited areas such as hazardous waste and its remediation and indoor air quality (the first of these had lapsed but others were being considered). Written requests for information in such areas were routinely met with polarised responses which could only be placed in context by individual interviews. Testimonials and the review of the work product were considered to be of crucial importance in evaluation. ABIH had reciprocity arrangements with the Board of Occupational Safety Professionals at the technologist level and with BEBOH for whom the examination into the core aspects were waived but subject to a minimum of five years in the practice of industrial hygiene.

Discussion

Warren Smith asked whether objectivity related to education could apply in the assessment of experience.Roy Covert replied that the Professional Reference Questionnaire (PRQ) used by the supervisor and the professional industrial hygienist was being revised to screen out subjectivity and hence to make it more objective. Responding to a question fromKurt Leichnitz , he explained that the Board retained legal counsel but tried to avoid confrontation and had not so far been called in to lend support in cases of legal liability.

Harry Ettinger wondered where the line was drawn in deciding on accreditation periods to meet certification requirements for limited areas of work. He mentioned particularly asbestos, lead and plutonium areas.Roy Covert replied that such determinations are still subjective but focused on the issue of whether or not the applicant met the requirements for chemical or comprehensive practice. He thought for example that there were fewer opportunities to do this when working in lead than there were when working in asbestos.

Barry Bord asked if ABIH had experienced any pressure to reduce standards from for example Government or industry.Roy Covert replied that such pressure did exist and there were many qualifications with letters of undetermined value.

Paul Oldershaw observed that there was still substantial subjective assessment inevitably present even after making a determined effort to be totally objective

Evaluation of Professional Competence-Dave Verma

The Chief Examiner of the Canadian Registration Board of Occupational Hygienists pointed out that occupational hygiene was one of a variety of professional competencies. Within these competencies there were a number of desirable skills including technical skills, problem solving, interpersonal abilities, communication abilities and ethical judgement. Ideally, all of these should be tested. He listed a number of evaluation methods including the following:

He thought that these three methods were best suited to evaluating occupational hygiene competence but he also listed a number of other methods used particularly for assessing medical competence (see "Assessing Clinical Competence" Macmaster). He looked briefly at precedent within other examination boards for the evaluation of occupational hygiene competence as follows:

He went on to consider the measurement properties of evaluation methods in terms of credibility, comprehensiveness, precision, validity and feasibility. His view was that the feasibility was most often the deciding factor - especially for a volunteer-based professional organisation. He then went on to summarise the various testing methods and their appropriateness and capabilities to test the particular skills using the "Abilities (competence/skills) vs the testing methods grid" shown below.

The ordinates on the grid list six general categories of abilities and the cells indicate the degree of appropriateness of the assessment method [written (essay - multiple choice), oral and direct observation] for a given ability. The weighting using a system of blank, question mark (?) and pluses, reflect the capability of each testing method to test the particular ability (skills/competence). The weighting in the grid is meant to indicate: Blank - negligible, ? - questionable, + - low, ++ - medium, +++ - high.

As shown in the table, testing by multiple choice questions will be rated highly for assessing knowledge base but would have negligible power to assess problem solving skills. Oral examination, on the other hand, will be rated highly for testing problem solving skills but would have low power for testing knowledge base.

To do the job properly it was clearly necessary to carry out multiple testing. The setting up of a base knowledge training requirement might reduce the need for some testing subject, of course, to the currency of skills. He suggested that written examination for test base knowledge may be substituted by accreditation of educational programmes. This approach had to be broadly based internationally to account for the fact that some basic levels of training or qualifications might not be available in some countries; feasibility was a most important issue especially for certification by a voluntary organisation. Last year in Canada fifteen people had been examined seven of whom had been allowed to proceed to the oral stage; of these, all but one had been successful. All the orals had been conducted by Dave Verma and two other examiners selected from a pool of trained examiners.

Discussion

A three cornered discussion betweenHarry Ettinger ,Bob Herrick andDave Verma examined some of the assertions implicit in the table above. There was a feeling that technical skills and problem solving skills could be assessed by written examination and particularly by multiple choice. Problem solving could in addition be tested by answering a well written essay question.Dave Verma stated that the published scientific evidence on assessing competence clearly supports his statements regarding the abilities of various testing methods, including statements such as problem solving or technical skills could not really be tested by written examination. He acknowledged that the accusation of excessive subjectivity could be levelled particularly at the oral examinations (which can be reduced but not eliminated by structured orals), but did not feel that the written examinations could show how a person thought on his/her feet to changing situations.

Chris Beach thought that essays were just as subjective as orals but that the subjectivity was more difficult to isolate. He also thought that orals were good for the testing of knowledge in terms of whether or not such knowledge was present rather than how much.

Dick Heederik explained that in the Netherlands much emphasis was placed on thesis qualifications which he thought were good testing value for problem solving. He noted that the ability to keep up with facts was at least as important as the ability to acquire knowledge in the first place.

The Relationship Between Certification and Legislation-Barry Bord

The immediate past President of the UK IOH explained that there was a very strong connection between the certification of occupational hygienists and the development of legislation, the latter fostering the need for occupational hygienists. In the UK, the principles of occupational hygiene had infiltrated the legislation rather than the other way round. There had been a long history of very prescriptive legislation until the Robens Report and the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. This new legislation was goal setting rather than rule setting with the responsibility transferred to the employer who had to use whatever expertise was available to carry out these responsibilities. This goal setting approach was now common to European Union requirements and there had been a strong policy for some years of the duties being placed firmly upon the employer with much flexibility in the way he could meet these obligations. Cost and practicality were major factors and whilst there were restrictions which generated very restricted ability to practice in some areas (radiation, gas safety) the general approach was to judge the requirement for adequately handling the particular job and require a level of competence appropriate to that task. A national scheme of tiered qualification and competences had been established for many trades and professions but though the hygiene community had put much effort into defining specific competences to be assessed, this had not proven a practical approach - the requirements were too extensive to be deliverable. This expertise was fit for the purpose rather of the type normally ascribed to true experts. The Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations (COSHH) had followed this pattern. Guidance on assessment under COSHH was almost antagonistic towards the use of the expert occupational hygienist.

Thus, there was a need for caution in promoting schemes in which it was assumed that occupational hygienists owned occupational hygiene. The UK Noise Regulations and the Ionising Radiations Regulations require competent persons but are little better than COSHH with respect to the use of true experts. Similarly, the Management Regulations following a European Community Directive show the result of pressure from the rest of Europe in that a person is competent if that person can do the job. The case for the registration of

professionals had not been made. Rather, the principle seemed to be that systems should not shut out people who were not formally qualified and that skills and experience should be fit for the purpose. He then mentioned National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs), a national examination and certification scheme covering very many trades and professions. It had been envisaged that professional people would be covered by the top levels 4 and 5 of the five level scheme. Occupational hygienists had tried to co-operate with this scheme but, despite their best endeavours, the requirements had become too vast for this to be a feasible route to certification and the system insofar as hygienists were concerned had become impracticable. In response to a question fromWarren Smith ,Barry Bord explained that other professionals such as medical doctors and nurses had tried to use the scheme but had failed. He ended his presentation by listing four factors which might indicate a move towards certification by the UK Government:

The attendees divided into three working groups, to discuss: core elements of certification; evaluation of professional competence, and the relationship between certification and legislation. Brief summaries of their conclusions are set out below.

Report of working group 1: Core elements of certification

The working group was fortunate to consist of several nationalities which enhanced the discussion. As core elements of certification were mentioned education, experience and examination. With regard to education a university education was considered essential. The trend is clearly towards formal curricula in occupational hygiene, preferably accredited programmes. For experience little differences were observed since 5 years of professional experience is universally accepted as the yardstick. The need for confirmation of professional experience by independent observers was stated. With regard to specialists no conclusion was drawn since developments in USA and UK are uncertain.

Report of working group II: Evaluation of professional competence

The working group stated as a starting point that professional competence refers to the application of knowledge rather than knowledge itself. Thus, testing of competence should focus on application of knowledge gained by professional experience over e.g. 5 years, given the condition that applicants have acquired the essential knowledge base in a formal educational programme and should not be replicated in the competence testing. It was argued that written examination may not be enough to test competence since it is biased towards testing base knowledge.

With international co-operation in mind it was felt that a common standard for the base knowledge is easier to attain. Competence, defined as application of knowledge, may depend too much on national developments. The working group advised to ask certification bodies to identify barriers in base knowledge and competence and to accept designations of other schemes. Differences in base knowledge could be bridged.

Report of working group III: Relationship between certification and legislation

After reviewing the enormous variation in legislation of countries with a tradition in occupational hygiene the working group concluded that legislation itself does not act as an unsurmountable barrier in most parts of the world to the development of the discipline. Although legislation is certainly shaping the position of occupational hygienists, the driving forces for the professional development are the profession itself, cognate disciplines that claim and deliver occupational hygiene, and company policies.

Paul Oldershaw concluded the programme by thanking those that had put so much effort into briefing the Workshop and answering the many queries. There were clearly many different approaches possible to certification and assessment of competence but, as Dr Burdorf had pointed out, practical constraints had led to much commonality. There seemed much to be gained, and few major difficulties in the hygiene community working together to develop broadly compatible certification schemes, and in this there is clearly a role for IOHA.

Subsequent to the Workshop, IOHA issued a declaration of policy (see Annex 1).

WORKSHOP ATTENDEES

Annex 1

International Certification

The IOHA believes that professional certification schemes have many benefits, particularly in demonstrating capabilities of individual practitioners. They could, however, create unintended barriers to the world-wide development of the profession and unintentionally slow the speed of world-wide dissemination of hygiene principles. The IOHA believes that the world-wide improvement in occupational and environmental health is best served by the free movement of suitably qualified hygiene practitioners, and by the wider use of common standards. To this end, the IOHA will promote the following objectives:

The IOHA will continue to work on this subject to promote professional competence, without unintended consequences. We have launched an initiative to stimulate national certifying bodies to move to a level of mutual recognition of training and competence. We believe that international co-operation on certification will help develop the foundation of a recognised, and more visible profession