Promotion of safety awareness can be a puzzle for safety and health professionals who are concerned with presenting relevant training topics throughout the year. A piece of the solution to this problem is to align training initiatives with an organization that is focused exclusively on public promotion of safety and health. One such organization is the National Safety Council, a non-profit organization that puts together a national safety observances calendar each year.

May is National Electrical Safety Month

NSC designates May as National Electrical Safety Month and partners with the National Electrical Safety Foundation to present topics for public safety awareness of electrical hazards. According to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, nearly 400 people are killed or injured by electricity each year. This awareness program focuses primarily on residential electrical safety, but the NESF also produces a workplace safety guide in English and Spanish that could work well for training.

Healthy Vision Month

The National Eye Health Education Program also partners with NSC in May to coordinate another national safety and health observance, Healthy Vision Month. While this observance is mainly focused on eye health through regular screenings it also promotes eye injury prevention with a comprehensive PowerPoint resource for use by safety and health professionals as a training aid in the workplace.

Emergency Medical Services Week

For 30 years May has been the month in which National EMS Week takes place. In 2011, the American College of Emergency Physicians presents EMS week May 15-21. This is an excellent opportunity for safety and health professionals to review emergency medical procedures, refresh CPR, First Aid and AED training as well as review disaster recovery procedures.

May Heats Up

The end of May in many parts of the United States serves as the unofficial start of summer, with temperatures starting to climb and the amount of outdoor work and play increasing accordingly. It is appropriate then that the National Safety Council designates May 27 as Heat Safety Awareness Day. This day is an excellent opportunity to educate workers not only on the dangers of heat stress in the workplace, but also of the dangers that prolonged exertion in the heat can bring off the job as well. Training topics could include issues as simple as sunburn or heat rash or as serious as heat exhaustion and heat stroke focusing on prevention and first aid related to these conditions.