Vision Statement

The vision of OHTA is to protect worker’s health through awareness and knowledge of occupational health hazards, risks and controls.
 

Mission Statement

OHTA delivers professional training to enhance the practice of occupational hygiene globally. This is achieved through freely available training materials and approved training providers, powered by the latest technology to reach all corners of the world. It is a volunteer, not for profit, organisation which has successfully developed an international qualifications framework that ensures occupational hygienists have a pathway to the highest competency qualifications, recognized globally.

The OHTA Team

OHTA is a global team of occupational hygiene (OH) volunteers, approved trainers,  and students of all ages and backgrounds who are interested in protecting the health and safety of workers from hazards in their jobs.   Joining us in our work are national OH associations and corporate sponsors all who share a passion to make a difference in the health of workers.    You can see the faces and hear the stories of OHTA team members below.

Ankit Sharma

How Kah Kuan

Debbie Dietrich

Teachers & students at the AIOH

Workplace Health Without Borders

Zack Mansdorf

Naadiya Mundy

Eduardo Shaw (English version)

Eduardo Shaw (Spanish version)

Why Was the OHTA Formed

Occupational injuries and illnesses continue to be a widespread international problem. Data from Lloyd and Gallup in 2019 indicated that there are 340 million occupational accidents and 160 million work-related illnesses each year. A significant contributor to this problem is the lack of adequately trained occupational hygienists to recognize, evaluate, and control workplace hazards. Based on this pressing need, OHTA was officially constituted in 2009 as an international training program and qualifications framework.

Roger Alesbury and Steven Bailey were part of the team of OHTA Founders who conceived the idea and created OHTA. An important paper about the development of OHTA can be found in the paper “Addressing the Needs for International Training, Qualifications, and Career Development in Occupational Hygiene”,  Ann. Occup. Hyg., 2014, Vol. 58, No. 2, 140–151, Annals-2014-OHTA-Alesbury-Bailey    Roger Alesbury gave a keynote presentation entitled “Planning for Growth: Occupational Hygiene Capability” at the 2024 IOHA Conference. In this captivating presentation, Roger shares the OHTA history, its development and expansion, and opportunities for employers, trainers, and professional national associations through OHTA. The slide presentation can be accessed following the link: Planning for Growth - Occupational Hygiene Capability

What are the Goals of OHTA?

The number one priority of OHTA is to make low-cost, world-class courses available to OH practitioners and students in underserved areas. But we also have OHTA trainers in developed countries. Our ultimate goal is to increase the number and competency of occupational hygienists throughout the world.

What Does OHTA Offer?

Training materials are developed and maintained by OHTA volunteer teams who are internationally recognized experts in their subject area. Student manuals can be downloaded for free once you create an account on the website at ohtatraining.org.

Training courses are available from OHTA approved trainers who are typically OH consultants or national OH associations.

As part of our qualification framework, OHTA offers an ICertOHTA certificate in occupational hygiene to those students who have successfully completed exams for 6 of the OHTA500 series course. Exams are multiple-choice, open-book.

2024 - IOHA Collaboration Award

OHTA is the proud recipient of the 2024 IOHA Collaboration Award. This award reflects OHTA’s profound commitment to improving worker health protection and promoting occupational hygiene on a global scale along with continued efforts to enhance collaboration within the occupational hygiene community. The OHTA training courses were written by occupational hygienist, presented by occupational hygienist to develop young occupational hygienists. Since 2009, globally there have been over 500 volunteer occupational hygienists contributing to the mission of OHTA.

The acceptance speech by OHTA Co Chairs, Chris Laszcz-Davis and Steven Verpaele, at the 2024 IOHA Dublin Conference, has been posted below: