Evaluation of the Impact of Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s Enforcement Interventions

IMPAQ designed an evaluation of the enforcement procedures used by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) of the U.S. Department of Labor, to:  examine the overall impact of OSHA enforcement procedures on employer compliance with Federal safety and health standards, and identify the types of employers that typically have high injury/illness rates and/or low compliance with these standards.  To design the evaluation, IMPAQ reviewed critical documentation and information on OSHA’s enforcement procedures and analyzed OSHA inspection and enforcement data to examine patterns of compliance and recidivism based on employer characteristics.  The final deliverable was an evaluation design that OSHA could implement to determine the impact of enforcement activities on subsequent employer safety and health compliance.