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During a session at AIHA Connect 2025, speaker Christina Roll, MS, CIH, CSP, presented a series of scenarios describing work-related safety incidents. Then she asked audience members: did each scenario depict an injury that would result in a workers’ compensation claim, or one that required an entry on OSHA recordkeeping forms?

When Roll revealed the answers, attendees learned that one scenario represented a claim but not a recordable injury, while another illustrated the opposite. One would be properly classified as both, and another as neither. Roll’s objective was to correct a common misconception—that the two categories are essentially the same—by showing that their criteria overlapped very little. The lesson was “that a claim is different from a recordable, and they are not always the same thing, and one does not mean the other,” she told SynergistNOW.

This exercise supported the broader point of Roll’s session, titled “Demystifying the Critical Business Need for Workers’ Compensation,” but that she jokingly referred to as “Work Comp 101.” Roll, who has worked in insurance for 13 years, aimed to help occupational and environmental health and safety professionals gain basic knowledge of workers’ comp and learn how they fit into a field they are often unfamiliar with. Workers’ comp “can be a very complicated or confusing thing for those that don't understand it,” Roll said. “But it's also something every company in the United States—unless you are in the state of Texas—is required to have.”

Furthermore, grasping the basics of workers’ comp is greatly to OEHS professionals’ advantage. “If you are not engaging with your company in terms of their workers’ compensation program,” Roll said, “you are missing out on information you need to know, and they are missing out on knowledge and value that you can bring.”

The Value of Understanding Workers’ Comp

Roll acknowledged that workers’ compensation is an intimidating concept for many OEHS professionals, who are typically more involved with preventing exposures to hazards that may cause illness or injury than with navigating the intricacies of insurance claims. “There's parts of it that I don't even understand because it's just that confusing,” she said. “And it's OK that I don't know them because my role isn't to know them.”

Still, it serves OEHS professionals to understand key concepts related to workers’ compensation. For example, what is workers’ compensation to begin with? What does it cover? What are the components of policies? What is the process for advancing a claim? In her session, Roll provided a high-level overview of features attendees were likely to encounter in any workers’ comp program, which she conveyed using case studies and by engaging attendees in discussion. She presented information that was broadly relevant, so that “anybody who came could take away something and go back and apply it to where they worked,” she said.

However, Roll’s most important message was that OEHS professionals must be aware of their role in workers’ compensation programs and take steps to increase their involvement. “The biggest thing I wanted them to take away was: here's what all of this stuff means, and here is your role in it,” she said. “Here is why it's important for you to understand it. Here is how you can bring value to your organization.”

The fact that not every recordable injury is also a valid workers’ comp claim means that an OEHS professional who neglects workers’ compensation data is overlooking a critical source of information. Roll recommended for her attendees to approach their human resources departments and request copies of their organizations’ loss runs, which record all the workers’ compensation claims made within a given period. If an OEHS professional compares the loss run to their OSHA log, they will likely find incidents recorded on one document that are missing from the other. “The workers’ compensation loss run could be a huge source of data that an OEHS professional will never know about unless they ask to see it,” Roll explained.

Analyzing this data may allow OEHS professionals to identify tasks, areas, or processes where they should implement controls. “It could show you areas where people are getting hurt that you had no idea about,” she continued. “And then you can go and make some changes right away so that people stop getting hurt in those places.”

After addressing low-hanging fruit, Roll encouraged OEHS professionals to remain invested in workers’ comp. They must communicate to their employers that OEHS professionals’ involvement in workers’ compensation and related domains, such as return-to-work programs, will benefit employees and the organization as a whole. “If I'm doing my job, then my clients are going to be safer, and they will not hurt people, and people won't get injured in their workplace, and therefore claims won't need to happen in the first place,” Roll said. When workers are protected by OEHS expertise, organizations save money that would have been paid out as compensation for work-related injuries.

“The entire premise of your job is to keep people from being injured at work,” she added. “So right there is why you need to be part of the team managing the workers’ comp program.”

For example, OEHS professionals can implement wellness programs, mitigate hazards, and simplify tasks and processes to help injured employees return to work more quickly, easily, and successfully. They can also assess training programs to verify that they make sense and are effective and applicable to all employees. “Are you really communicating what you need to so that people aren't being injured? Are you working toward a culture in your workplace where safety isn't an afterthought?” Roll asked. “Safety is part of it. It's integrated into everything that workers’ comp programs do.”

Involvement with workers’ compensation programs not only helps OEHS professionals improve the work they already do, but also aids them in advocating for more resources, interaction with employees, and other factors that ensure OEHS programs have greater impact. “When you go back to your company, you can show you have value to them in workers’ comp programs,” Roll said. “You know that you have a role in them, and you can go back and inform them what that role is and how you can improve what the company is doing while keeping people safe at the same time.”

Aligning Safety and Industrial Hygiene

Roll’s session was well received by attendees, becoming one of the five highest-rated educational sessions of AIHA Connect 2025—despite, or perhaps because, of the fact that her topic lay outside the traditional scope of OEHS. The benefits brought by understanding workers’ comp illustrates the importance of branching out into other domains, in addition to maintaining expertise in OEHS. Attendees left Roll’s session able to “make actionable choices and make an impact right away based on information that we talked about,” she said.

The interactive nature of the session, in which Roll sought audience members’ input and provided opportunities for discussion, also contributed to the session’s positive reception. “The whole point was to give information but keep it as entertaining as workers’ compensation insurance can be,” she said.

Roll, who was a member of AIHA’s Conference Program Committee for three years, appreciated the highly technical, research-based presentations that dominate AIHA Connect programming. But she believed many industrial hygienists don’t realize they may also contribute to workplace safety, her primary area of focus. “We're thorough. We're methodical. We're scientific. What we do is extremely important,” she said. “But we also have a place in general safety. And we have a duty to be on the floor and talking to people and understanding operations.”

Didn’t catch Christina Roll’s session, “Demystifying the Critical Business Need for Workers’ Compensation,” at AIHA Connect 2025? For virtual and in-person conference attendees, a recording is available online through AIHA Connect OnDemand until Jan. 1, 2026.