Industry, NIOSH Join to Update 40-Year-Old Hard Hat Design to Prevent Brain Injuries

Preventing traumatic brain injuries among construction workers by improving hard hats is the goal of research under way at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

The first step in the research is evaluating hard hats currently on the market, Christopher Pan, a NIOSH engineer and project officer for the research, told Bloomberg BNA May 27. In addition to testing how well a head is protected from top and side impacts, Pan is interested in how well the neck is protected as the head swivels from an impact.

Pan doesn’t yet know what the research will recommend for hard ...