13. Animal Handler Risk Assessment

A distance learning opportunity
June 26, 2024
12:00 – 2:30pm (CDT)

Registration for the live webinar must be completed 1 business day prior to the start of the training.
Registrations received after will receive access to the recording only.

Risk assessments are an important and integral part of occupational health programs, veterinary medical education, veterinary diagnostic laboratories, and IBC reviews for animal handlers and other workers who are exposed to animal tissues, body fluids, secretions or excretions. The risk assessment must accompany a medical evaluation that monitors workers for underlying medical risk factors, allergies, and vaccination status and awareness training for workers exposed to animals.

This introductory webinar will provide an overview of the hazards associated with animal work and focus on the questions that should be asked in a risk assessment to elucidate the information needed to build a complete risk assessment profile for work conducted with animals and with animal derived tissues and specimens. The webinar will cover strategies for implementing the risk assessment, including how and when to involve other specialists, and integrating the process into the overall occupational health program. Circumstances where additional information is needed to complete the risk assessment will be identified; such situations will require follow-up interviews and in some cases site visits by the biosafety professional. Translation of the risk assessment into recommendations for risk mitigation will be discussed.

Scenarios will be included to provide examples of how to apply risk assessment to activities involving animal research or other work exposure. This course is not meant to give you the answers to all the scenarios you may come across, but rather to arm you with the tools to ask the right questions to identify appropriate hazard control strategies for the work to be conducted.

Upon completion of this webinar, participants will be able to:

• Develop and conduct an appropriate risk assessment strategy for your institution and research program
• Define how and when to coordinate with Occupational Medicine professionals or other specialists (i.e. Industrial Hygienists / Chemical Safety Officers)
• Identify appropriate risk mitigation strategies to animal handlers and labs handling animal materials
• Coordinate follow-up interviews and evaluations

What will not be covered in detail:

• Non-human primate risks and strategies
• Detailed information about field work with animals

The webinar will be presented by Matt Philpott, PhD, retired animal disease researcher and biological safety officer.

• Animal handlers, technicians, researchers, animal facility managers
• Laboratory workers
• Research veterinarians and veterinarian assistants or technicians
• Biosafety professionals
• Occupational health professionals
• Principal investigators

This course has been approved for 0.25 CM points toward RBP/CBSP recertification. ABSA International is approved as a provider of continuing education programs in the clinical laboratory sciences by the ASCLS P.A.C.E.^® Program. This course is approved for 3.00 P.A.C.E.^® contact hours. The links to the various invitations for the course will be unique to the user and cannot be shared. The links are for single, individual use only. If more than one occurrence of an individual’s name is on the attendee list for the webinar through Zoom platform, all instances of that person’s name will be removed from the webinar with no refund. The webinar and its associated links are for single, individual use only.