Clayton April M, Hayes James, Lathrop George W, Powell Nathaniel
Division of Scientific Resources, Comparative Medicine Branch, National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA, USA.
Appl Biosaf. 2019 Jun 1;24(2):72-82. doi: 10.1177/1535676019831915.
Laboratory animal facilities aim to provide excellence in animal care and welfare and support scientific research. Critical to these goals is to ensure a safe work environment for personnel comprising veterinary and animal care, laboratory research, and maintenance staff.
Thus, performing occupational risk assessments allows for evaluation of risks from identified hazards associated with a variety of tasks ongoing in laboratory animal facilities.
Herein, we present the development of an occupational risk assessment tool purposed to capture the dynamics of work performed in laboratory animal facilities, calculate and prioritize identified risks associated with procedures and processes, and inform and evaluate risk mitigations.
We also discuss a risk assessment for refining sharps use in nonhuman primate husbandry and care to demonstrate the utility of this tool to improve occupational safety in our animal facility.
This tool and framework evolve into a holistic occupational risk management system that identifies, evaluates, and mitigates occupational risks; determines risk acceptability; consistently ensures communication and consultation with frontline personnel, stakeholders, senior leadership, and subject matter experts in biosafety, science, and animal care and welfare; and continuously strives to improve and enhance the operations of laboratory animal facilities.
实验动物设施旨在提供卓越的动物护理和福利，并支持科学研究。对于实现这些目标至关重要的是，要确保为包括兽医和动物护理人员、实验室研究人员以及维护人员在内的全体员工提供一个安全的工作环境。
因此，进行职业风险评估有助于评估实验动物设施中正在进行的各种任务所产生的已识别危害带来的风险。
在此，我们介绍一种职业风险评估工具的开发情况，该工具旨在把握实验动物设施中工作的动态情况，计算与程序和流程相关的已识别风险并确定其优先级，以及为风险缓解措施提供信息并进行评估。
我们还讨论了一项关于优化非人灵长类动物饲养和护理中锐器使用的风险评估，以证明该工具在改善我们动物设施职业安全方面的效用。
该工具和框架逐步发展成为一个全面的职业风险管理系统，该系统可识别、评估和减轻职业风险；确定风险可接受性；始终确保与一线人员、利益相关者、高层领导以及生物安全、科学和动物护理与福利方面的主题专家进行沟通和协商；并不断努力改进和提升实验动物设施的运营。
