OCCUPATIONAL EXPOSURE BANDING

Differences between Control Banding and Occupational Exposure Banding

The proposed NIOSH occupational exposure banding process guides a user through the evaluation and selection of critical health hazard information to select an Occupational Exposure Band (OEB) from among five categories of severity. For OEBs, the process uses only hazard-based data (e.g., studies on human health effects or toxicology studies) to identify an overall level of hazard potential and associated airborne concentration range for chemicals with similar hazard profiles. While the output of this process can be used by informed occupational safety and health professionals to make risk management and exposure control decisions, the process does not supply such recommendations directly.

In contrast, control banding is a strategy that groups workplace risks into control categories or bands based on combinations of hazard and exposure information [ AIHA 2007; Zalk et al. 2010; Zalk and Nelson 2008 ]. Control banding combines hazard banding with exposure risk management and exposure management to directly link hazard to specific control measures [ AIHA 2007; HSE 2013; NIOSH 2009 ]. Control banding can be used in concert with the Occupational Exposure Banding methodology. For more information on control banding please refer to the control banding topic page: Control Banding.