Understanding the required Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) programs and recognizing hazards will help you to identify and correct many of the common safety and health hazards associated with doing forensic analysis and research.

Most hazards encountered fall into three main categories: chemical, biological, or physical. Cleaning agents and disinfectants, drugs, solvents, paints, and compressed gases are examples of chemical hazards. Potential exposures to chemical hazards can occur both during use and with poor storage.

Biological hazards include potential exposures to blood and body fluids, allergens, infectious zoonotics (animal diseases transmissible to humans), and other agents such as viral vectors. Blood and body fluids, ubiquitous in forensic laboratories, are one of the most important health hazards.

Finally there are the physical hazards associated with forensic laboratories. The most obvious are slips and falls from working in wet locations and the ergonomic hazards of lifting, pushing, pulling, and repetitive tasks. Other physical hazards often unnoticed are entering confined spaces or trenches, electrical, mechanical, acoustic, or thermal in nature. Ignoring these can have potentially serious consequences.

From: OSHA and the Forensic Laboratory by The Safety Guys