Editor’s Note: The future of the field

As this issue of Safety+Health goes to press, the nation is still contending with the pandemic and its unknowns, and public interest in occupational safety and health is the highest I’ve experienced in my lifetime.

The simple “worker safety” search term I’ve entered into Google News for years when looking for recently published research or state-level news used to produce a few new hits before showing results I’d already seen – some of which were many months old. Now, all the news is current and a great deal of it is from mainstream media sources that, in my observation, rarely covered the topic in the past.

In my Editor’s Note in the May issue, I called attention to our “What’s Your Opinion?” poll on the S+H website, which asked, Do you believe the COVID-19 situation will have a lasting impact on the field of occupational safety and health? I said we’d keep asking the question, and we’ve followed up on that this month by reaching out to various thought leaders and experts in the field on the changes they’ve seen and what they believe the future holds.

The piece, The future of safety, was pulled together quickly on a very tight deadline, so we’re grateful to everyone who was able to offer their thoughts on such short notice.

We also want to keep hearing from you. We’ve kept the poll question up longer than we usually do, and we’ll keep it up for a few more weeks. But after it has been replaced, you’re still welcome to weigh in – or on any of our past polls – by going to the poll archive on the S+H website and submitting your comments. We learn a lot from you.

The opinions expressed in “Editor’s Note” do not necessarily reflect those of the National Safety Council or affiliated local Chapters.