M10.5 Occupational safety and health organization

The organization I chose to explore is CalOSHA and I selected their respirable crystalline silica safety program to read up on. Construction workers have potential exposures to respirable crystalline silica, and since my dad is a construction worker, this program caught my attention. Respirable crystalline silica can cause silicosis (lung fibrosis), lung cancer, and other serious health effects. The program set standards to control employee exposures to respirable crystalline silica. The standards are:

• requires all employers to protect employees from exposures that exceed the "permissible exposure limit" (PEL) for respirable crystalline silica
• applies to occupational exposures in construction, except where exposures will remain below the "action level" under any foreseeable conditions
• applies to all occupational exposures except construction work, agricultural operations, and exposures from the processing of sorptive clays

By learning about this type of exposure among construction workers, I want to ask my dad if he has any knowledge about his occupational health risks.