Health & Safety Engineers

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No amount of regulations or safety measures can completely eliminate risk from the world, but health and safety engineers use engineering tools and technology to make our lives as safe as possible. These engineers promote worksite and product safety to minimize danger from a variety of hazards —chemical, physical, biological, and even psychological. They focus both on preventing hazardous conditions, and developing safety measures to control problems when they do occur. There are several types of health and safety engineers: Industrial safety and health engineers often team up with public health and safety workers to investigate industrial accidents and injuries, find their cause, and prevent future problems. Fire prevention and protection engineers analyze buildings, transportation systems, and materials for potential fire hazards… and design fire prevention and suppression systems. Product safety engineers test products, from nuclear submarine reactors to children’s toys, to ensure they are safe and meet regulations. Systems safety engineers work in many fields, including aerospace, medical safety, and environmental safety, to ensure safe system designs. While health and safety engineers spend time in the office, they also travel to worksites to evaluate machinery and environments and to train workers in safety and emergency procedures. Many of these positions require a four-year college degree in environmental health and safety or a related engineering field.