OSHA recently revised its Site-Specific Targeting (SST) program to establish a new category of employers who may be targeted for safety inspections this year. The new directive replaces SST-16 to target facilities based on employer-reported data from 2017-2019.
The revised SST program will:
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Establish a new targeting category, “Upward Trending Establishments,” for sites with consistent injury and illness rate increases over the three-year data collection period; and
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Allow records-only inspections when a compliance safety and health officer determines incorrect data led to an establishment's inclusion in the program.
According to OSHA, these changes ensure OSHA uses the most relevant data available to determine when a full inspection is necessary. The program only affects non-construction workplaces with 20 or more employees. The plan has been in effect since December 14, 2020.
Read the complete directive here.
Who’s Targeted for Inspection?
OSHA will focus the SST program on four types of establishments:
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High-Rate Establishments. Individual establishments selected for inspection due to a high rate of DART (Days Away, Restricted, or Transferred) incidents.
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Upward Trending Establishments. OSHA will track facilities that had injury and illness rates above the national average for their industry in 2017 and continued to trend above the average through, 2018, 2019, and beyond.
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Low-Rate Establishments. To ensure the data OSHA collects is reliable, a random sample of sites with a low DART rate will also be targeted for inspection.
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Non-Responders. Employers who failed to electronically submit 2017-2019 injury and illness data from 300A will also be targeted, in order to discourage employers from not reporting to avoid inspection.
Background
The first SST program was launched by OSHA on October 16, 2018. It was named SST-16 because it used employer-submitted injury and illness data to construct its list of targeted sites. This resulted in 705 inspections in fiscal year 2019.
The data revealed that the average number of violations identified and citations issued as a result of SST-16 inspections was comparable to those issued as a result of other OSHA programs. OSHA concluded that SST-16 inspections were just as effectively targeted as the agency’s other emphasis programs.
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