Todd Loushine
Todd Loushine
Associate Professor of Occupational & Environmental Safety & Health
University of Wisconsin-Whitewater
We deserve a better Injury and Illness Recordkeeping Standard.
OSHA updated their recordkeeping standard (29 CFR 1904) in 2016 and launched the Injury Tracking Application (ITA) for employers to upload their 300A data, workforce hours, and company information. These annual datasets are available to the public for viewing and analysis, whereas the Bureau of Labor Statistics only publishes their analysis results and summary reports (not the raw collected datasets). This provides an opportunity to compare OSHA to BLS and perform additional analyses to test the reliability and validity of employer-submitted OSHA recordable data. Published research literature and BLS reports indicate that employers have and do under-report their injury and illness cases but the extend and prevalence of these discrepancies are not fully understood.
An honest and detailed analysis of OSHA ITA datasets (2016-2023) will be presented to demonstrate significant inconsistencies, violation of normality, and no correlation with BLS results. The results further the contention that incidence rates are inaccurate performance numbers and improvements are needed for OSHA recordkeeping practices and ITA portal management.
Dr. Loushine is an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, specializing in everything from basic OSHA compliance to advanced data analysis techniques and research methods in EHS. In 2023-2024, Professor Loushine put his over 30 years of experience “to the test” by working part-time as a safety manager for Research Products Corporation in Madison Wisconsin.
Todd’s career began with a B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Minnesota and a fortuitus career initiation as a compliance officer with Minnesota-OSHA. He completed his M.S. and Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, with special emphases in psychology and sociology. Dr. Loushine has dedicated his life to educating and assisting others on how to systematically evaluate work, and manage organizations to improve safety, productivity, and job satisfaction.
Todd’s approach to safety is systems-based and data-driven, which defines safety as an attribute of work and utilizes a quality management approach. He strives to learn from workers (and students) to understand it from their perspective to be a better professional and instructor while optimizing the design and function of the work processes and relationships.