Among the many changes made in laboratory safety in the last 50 years, improving the culture of safety has been one of the biggest challenges facing health and safety professionals. This is particularly challenging in academic research settings where academic freedom is paramount to the creative process and where many of the pressures on program performance are not as immediate as in private industry. Establishing a positive attitude towards safety cannot be limited to research laboratories; the administration must institute and enforce the policies that encourage safety in the lab. This presentation compares the UCLA Office of Environment, Health and Safety's approaches to campus laboratory safety before and after a fatal laboratory accident that served as a potent indication of the inadequate safety culture. Before the incident, the Laboratory Safety Program was unstructured and inefficient as a result of vague or often non-existent policies. Training for campus laboratory employees was limited in capacity and schedule, and laboratory inspections had no standardized form. Improvements made to the UCLA Laboratory Safety Program, including the development of a laboratory hazard assessment tool, major improvements in inspection procedures, and the establishment of a defined policy on personal protective apparel and equipment (PPE) program, have led to real and measureable changes in safety culture. These changes have been tracked since implementation in 2010 and have resulted in significant improvements in lab safety culture at UCLA.The objective of this presentation is to comprehensively describe the process that UCLA undertook to develop this program and provide empirical data to demonstrate positive changes in the safety culture.  The presentation will also provide practical step-by-step guidance on developing similar programs and performance metrics to measure success.

Transformation of a laboratory safety program: From "old school" to a more effective approach

248th National Meeting (2014)

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