This interactive presentation examines how workers think and why they act the way they do. It explores behavior patterns, human decision‑making, at‑risk actions, societal influences, and how habits are formed. The session introduces a fresh perspective on safety and equips participants with practical strategies for influencing behavior, communicating more effectively with colleagues and employees, and improving training methods to enhance engagement and retention. Built on core psychological principles and their connection to safe and unsafe actions, this 1hour presentation equips leaders to take a proactive, forwardlooking approach to safety. It highlights how leadership behaviors, expectations, and environment shape outcomes—and how leaders can intervene early, support better decisionmaking, and reduce incidents before they occur.

Opioid use disorder and overdose deaths have disproportionately affected mine workers. Workers who face greater risks of injury and psychosocial stress have increased risks for adverse substance use and mental health issues. However, workplace programs can be effective in improving worker health and well-being. MSHA and NIOSH developed a guide to provide mine operators and occupational safety and health managers with tools to implement a range of workplace interventions to prevent opioid use disorder in their workers. Rather than offering a one-size-fits-all approach, the guide includes 10 distinct strategies that can be tailored to individual mines’ needs based on organizational size, resource constraints, and other factors. The presentation will provide a brief overview of the guide as well as tips on how to implement aspects of the guide to prevent opioid use disorder among mine workers.

Overview

The NIOSH Mining Program’s mission is to eliminate mining fatalities, injuries, and illnesses by conducting relevant research and developing practical, impactful solutions. This presentation will provide an indepth look at our two research branches — Spokane Mining Research Division (SMRD) and Pittsburgh Mining Research Division (PMRD) — and highlight how collaboration across industry associations, academia, and government strengthens our ability to improve miner safety and health. Because NIOSH is sometimes mistaken for a regulatory agency, we will clarify our scientific, nonregulatory role and explain how we partner with stakeholders to address pressing health and safety challenges in mining. The session will also outline the major topic areas we research and demonstrate how these partnerships help transform innovative ideas into realworld improvements for miners.

Overview

Mining operates on a 24/7 schedule, but human alertness follows a different biological schedule. This session explores how circadian disruption, accumulated sleep pressure, and real-time cognitive workload combine to shape decision capacity and the risk of serious injury and fatality in modern operations. Using lessons from field deployments, human factors research, and operational case examples, the presentation will show how fatigue risk emerges across a shift, a roster, and a system, not just within an individual. Participants will examine why self-report and hours-of-service models often fail to capture vulnerability, and how integrating objective measures of alertness with supervisory practices can strengthen risk visibility at the point of work. The session will translate fatigue science into practical controls: aligning tasks with biological readiness, recognizing high-risk windows, supporting effective interventions, and building shared accountability between workers, dispatch, and leadership. Attendees will leave with a clearer understanding of the miner’s “clock,” where cognitive capacity is most likely to degrade, and how data-informed approaches can help operations move from reactive response to proactive prevention.