Visualizing the NIOSH Pocket Guide: Open-source web application for accessing and exploring the NIOSH Pocket Guide to Chemical Hazards

Abstract

The NIOSH Pocket Guide to Chemical Hazards is a trusted resource that displays key information for a collection of chemicals commonly encountered in the workplace. Entries contain chemical structures—occupational exposure limit information ranging from limits based on full-shift time-weighted averages to acute limits such as short-term exposure limits and immediately dangerous to life or health values, as well as a variety of other data such as chemical-physical properties and symptoms of exposure. The NIOSH Pocket Guide (NPG) is available as a printed, hardcopy book, a PDF version, an electronic database, and a downloadable application for mobile phones. All formats of the NIOSH Pocket Guide allow users to access the data for each chemical separately, however, the guide does not support data analytics or visualization across chemicals. This project reformatted existing data in the NPG to make it searchable and compatible with exploration and analysis using a web application. The resulting application allows users to investigate the relationships between occupational exposure limits, the range and distribution of occupational exposure limits, and the specialized sorting of chemicals by health endpoint or to summarize information of particular interest. These tasks would have previously required manual extraction of the data and analysis. The usability of this application was evaluated among industrial hygienists and researchers and while the existing application seems most relevant to researchers, the open-source code and data are amenable to modification by users to increase customization.

Keywords:

• Industrial hygiene
• occupational exposure limits
• occupational medicine
• toxicology

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Yongsil Woo, Ibrahim Sanusi, Qin Zhang, Elliot Maceda, and Xiantong Liu of Miami University for their early prototype application examples. We also would like to thank Melissa Edmonson, Paula Grubb, Sara Tamers, Molly Leshner, Krystin Carlson, Barbara MacKenzie, Stephen Gilbert, Sudha Pandalai, Jerald Ovesen, Shirisha Chittiboyina, Jay Vietas, Laura Hodson, Nathan Drew, and James Couch from the Risk Evaluation Branch and the Emerging Technologies Branch within the Division of Science Integration at NIOSH for providing user testing and feedback for this application.

Data availability

The data used in this study were derived from the NIOSH Pocket Guide to Chemical Hazards at https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/npg/default.html, the 1988 OSHA PEL Project documentation at https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/pel88/pelstart.html, the NIOSH Recommendations for occupational safety and health: compendium of policy documents and statements (1992) at https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/92-100/pdfs/92-100.pdf?id=10.26616/NIOSHPUB92100, and the following NIOSH documents: NEG and NIOSH basis for an Occupational Health Standard: 2-diethylaminoethanol at https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/96-104/pdfs/96-104.pdf?id=10.26616/NIOSHPUB96104; Current intelligence bulletin 64: coal mine dust exposures and associated health outcomes: a review of information published since 1995 at https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/2011-172/pdfs/2011-172.pdf; and Criteria for a recommended standard: occupational exposure to hexavalent chromium at https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/2013-128/pdfs/2013_128.pdf. Excel spreadsheets containing the data are available on request from the corresponding author

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Disclaimer

The findings and conclusions in this report are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official position of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported in part by a CDC/NIOSH Contracts with Miami University and Synergy America, and in part by an appointment to NIOSH, administered by ORAU through the U.S. Department of Energy Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education. In addition, the work conducted by LeeAnn Lucas was partially supported by the Harvard Education and Research Center (T42 OH008416).