03/11/2025: Museum Health & Safety: A Focus on Pesticides and Silica Dust

Recorded on Tuesday, March 11th, 2025

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Museum Health & Safety: A Focus on Pesticides and Silica Dust

About the webinar:

Museum staff and management must protect the health of employees, volunteers, and the public. This talk will focus on health risks arising from exposures to older pesticides and from silica dust. When museums return tribal cultural artifacts to native communities, they must consider what preservatives were used, including copper sulfate, DDT, creosote, and arsenic.

In addition, we will focus on museum staff risk related to silica dust exposures, including brick surfaces, marble dust residues, tombstone cleaning, paleontology dusts, and laboratory countertop repair and replacement. It is clear that western field work must be concerned with coccidiomycosis as well as silica dust.

Learning Objectives

At the completion of this activity, the learner will be able to:

  • Identify the routes of exposure for older pesticides and for silica dusts and the health effects related to these hazards 

  • Describe the personal protective equipment (PPE) needed for both hazards 
  • Discuss the importance of prevention methods and surveillance activities to safeguard museum staff 

Speaker: David Goldsmith, MSPH, PhD

Dr. David F. Goldsmith is an occupational and environmental epidemiologist with an academic appointment at George Washington University. He has over 35 years of experience in occupational, environmental, and public health. Dr. Goldsmith’s current research interests include silica dust health effects, including cancer, silicosis, tuberculosis, autoimmune disease, and kidney ailments; the interaction between smoking and inhaled hazards; countertop exposures and acute silicosis; urban pesticide exposures; repatriated Indian cultural artifacts; breast and ovarian cancers; and other chronic health effects linked with workplace and environmental exposures, as well as risk assessment and risk communication. He teaches a graduate course on veterans’ ealth and deployment hazards.

ACCREDITATION

The Center for Occupational and Environmental Health designates this activity for a maximum of 1.0 Contact Hour. Participants should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation.

Provider approved by the California Board of Registered Nursing, Provider Number 12983, for 1.0 contact hour.

Certificates of Completion

Certificates of Completion will be available to webinar participants who are present for the complete, live webinar, and logged in with their registered email address. Call-in attendees are not eligible for certificates at this time - Please download the Zoom app to log in via email on your smartphone whenever possible.

In order to receive your Certificate of Completion, qualified learners must complete the post-webinar evaluation within 7 days of the webinar. A link to the evaluation will be emailed to qualified learners 24 hours after the webinar via no-reply@zoom.us. Qualified learners who submit their evaluation will receive a Certificate of Completion via email, and can also print/save the certificate from their browser after submitting their evaluation.

If you're not able to attend the live presentation, no problem! We record most presentations and will host them on our website provided we have permission to do so. Presentation recordings are not eligible for Certificates of Completion.

ACCESSIBILITY:

If you require an accommodation for effective communication (ASL interpreting/CART captioning, alternative media formats, etc.) to fully participate in this event, please contact Michelle Meyer at (510) 642-8365 or mmeyer@berkeley.edu(link sends e-mail) with as much advance notice as possible and at least 7-10 days in advance of the event.

Johns Hopkins Education and Research Center for Occupational Safety and Health

John Hopkins University Education and Research Center for Occupational Safety and Health

The Johns Hopkins Education and Research Center (ERC) for Occupational Safety and Health trains and supports researchers and practitioners in the field of occupational safety and health with the goal of protecting the safety and health of all workers. The John Hopkins ERC is one of 18 ERCs sponsored by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and comprises four academic programs, continuing education courses and conferences and pilot project grant programs.