Many people are not clear on the difference between Certified Safety Professionals (CSPs) and Certified Industrial Hygienists (CIHs) which can lead to confusion in who you should reach out to when bringing in specialized help.
The easiest way to differentiate is that CSPs are concerned about what affects the outside of your body, in the picture above they would be concerned about fire hazards. The CIH is worried about what affects the inside of your body, such as inhalation of welding fumes. For a more general discussion see my LinkedIn newsletter.
Both specialists are required to have specific experience but only the CIH examinee is required to have specific education prior to taking the certification exam but the topics in the exam are very different. The details about these exams are included at the end of this blog but the overview is that the CIH is required to know vastly more information about chemical and other health hazards, including radiation, than the CSP, less than 19% of their exam deals with these issues.
So, if you are concerned about employee exposures to noise, chemicals, biologicals, radiation, and other exposures that affect the inside of the body you want to call a Certified Industrial Hygienist to come and assess the exposure and workplace conditions affecting employee’s health. That is what we do here at Practical Safety and Health Solutions!
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If you are looking for someone certified to know workplace safety management you need a Certified Safety Professional, usually you hire a CSP and bring in a CIH to do sampling and consultation as needed.
The CIH exam
The CIH, Certified Industrial Hygienists, exam is provided and managed by the Board for Global EHS Credentialing who define the practice of Industrial Hygienists as “protecting the health and safety of workers and the public by anticipating, recognizing, evaluating, and controlling chemical, physical, ergonomic, or biological hazards, including COVID-19.”
This organization has not published statistics on members with CIH status since 2019. That year there were 656 applications to take the exam, 593 people took the exam and 299 passed. Between 1960 and 2019 only 12,039 people, total, have passed the exam and, in 2019 there were 6,940 Certified Industrial Hygienists in the world. The year before there were 819 applications, 589 people took the exam and 275, 46.6%, passed. The year I passed my exam was 2003 and the pass rate was 42%. Exams are given in the Spring and the Fall.
To qualify for the CIH exam you must provide documentation of the following:
- 60 semester hours from a bachelor’s or higher degree program in science, math, engineering, or science-based technology.
- 180 academic hours, or 240 continuing education contact hours of industrial hygiene courses, 50% of which are in the Fundamentals of Industrial Hygiene, Occupational and Environmental Health and Safety, Toxicology, measurements, and controls.
- At least 2 contact hours of ethics coursework.
- Active practice in the last 12 months before application.
- A minimum of 2 professional references that can document 4 years of your Industrial Hygiene work at the professional level.
Topics on the exam:
- Air sampling & instrumentation
- Analytical Chemistry
- Basic Science
- Biohazards
- Biostatistics & Epidemiology
- Community Exposure
- Engineering Controls/Ventilation
- Ergonomics
- Health Risk Analysis & Communication
- Industrial Hygiene/Occupational Environmental Health & Safety Program Management
- Noise sampling, data analysis, employee exposure assessment and control selection
- Non-engineering controls
- Radiation, Ionizing and non-ionizing
- Thermal Stressors, heat and cold
- Toxicology
- Work Environments & Industrial Processes
Once you have passed the exam you have 5 years to accumulate 40 Certification Maintenance points, one hour of continuing education in one of the above topics equals 0.17 point and pay annual fees.
The CSP exam
The CSP, or Certified Safety Professional, exam is provided and managed by the Board of Certified Safety Professionals. To compare apples to apples we’ll use their 2019 statistics. That year 1,601 out of 2,314 examinees, almost 70%, passed the CSP exam giving a total of 19,787 active CSPs. In 2023 there were 2,078 out of 3,379 passed the CSP exam for a total of 23,748 active CSPs.
To be qualified to take the CSP exam you must have:
- At least bachelor’s degree, does not have to be science or safety related, i.e. history is acceptable
- Four or more years safety experience in a job made of at least 50% preventive, professional level with breadth and depth of safety duties
- A BCSP Qualified Credential
- Associate Safety Professional (ASP)**
- Graduate Safety Practitioner (GSP)
- Transitional Safety Practitioner (TSP)**
- Certified Industrial Hygienist® (CIH®)
- Chartered Member of the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (CMIOSH)**
- Canadian Registered Safety Professional (CRSP)**
- Professional Certificate in Safety and Occupational Health, U.S. Army Combat Readiness Center (ACRC) (formerly “CP-12”)**
- Certified Safety Engineer (CSE), as administered by the State Administration of Work Safety (SAWS), People’s Republic of China (PRC)**
- Master in Occupational Safety and Health, International Training Centre of the International Labour Organization (ITC-ILO)**
- NEBOSH National or International Diploma in Occupational Health and Safety**
- Professional Member of the Singapore Institution of Safety Officers (SISO)**
- Diploma/Certificate in Industrial Safety, as issued by the State Government Departments Boards of Technical Education, Government of India
Less than 19% of the exam relate to occupational health topics:
- 9.95% of the exam covers knowledge of Industrial Health related topics
- The central concepts in anatomy and physiology the central concepts in chemistry, general through biochemistry
- The central concepts in physics, forms of energy, weights, forces, and stresses (for the CIH exam and practice noise exposure assessment and abatement and ventilation design require fluid dynamics type physics)
- Mathematics: algebra, geometry, trigonometry, finance, accounting, engineering, economics, statistics of interpreting data
- Core research methodology
- Microbiology, nanotechnology, waterborne and bloodborne pathogens
- 13.34% of the exam covers management theory and practice
- Incident investigation
- Key Performance Indicators, audits, ISO 14000, 45001, 19011, ANSO Z10
- Management of change
- business continuity and contingency plans, budgeting, timelines, cost/benefit, etc.
- Management leadership techniques and project management concepts
- 14.49% is Risk Management, insurance/risk transfer principles, Job Safety Analysis
- 16.69% is Advanced Application of Key Safety Concepts
- Safety through design
- Engineering, administrative, controls, PPE
- Chemical process safety management, pressure relief systems, materials of construction
- Common workplace hazards, electrical, falls, confined spaces, lockout/tagout, struck by
- Fleet safety principles, transportation safety principles
- Materials handling, forklifts, cranes, person lifts
- Hazardous materials management, labels, storage, handling, security
- Managing contractors, temporary/seasonal workers
- Workplace hazards, combustible dust, heat systems, high pressure, radiation, silica
- Human performance
- 10.59% is Emergency Preparedness, Fire Prevention, and Security
- 12.05% is Occupational Health and Ergonomics
- Advanced toxicology principles, carcinogens, chemical reproductive hazards, exposure symptoms, ototoxins
- ergonomics
- Exposure recognition, evaluation, and control, hazardous chemicals, radiation, noise, biological agents, heat/cold, epidemiology
- Techniques for measurement, sampling, and analysis
- Exposure limits
- Employee substance abuse
- 7.38% Environmental Management Systems, pollution prevention, release pollutant pathways, sustainability, REACH principles and restriction of hazardous substances
- 10.18% Training/Education methods and techniques
- 7.33% Law and Ethics, negligence, protection of confidential information, standards development processes, ethical conduct and practice, worker’s compensation
Once you have passed the exam you have 5 years to accumulate 25 Certification Maintenance points and pay annual fees.
Any questions? Don’t hesitate to contact us! Please post your comments below!