The Occupational Health and Safety Technologist (OHST) Exam is a certification examination written by the Council on Certification of Health, Environmental, and Safety Technologists (CCHEST) and administered by Pearson VUE that is designed to determine if an individual has the knowledge necessary to work as a health and safety specialist in an industrial setting.
This exam assesses the individual’s understanding of the procedures related to conducting effective safety inspections, safety and health training, maintaining accurate records of accidents and safety concerns, safety risk analysis, minimizing safety risks through hazard controls, emergency plans, and a variety of similar health and safety topics.
This exam is required to receive the OHST Certification, which may or may not be required depending on the specific position that the individual is pursuing and the local laws and regulations present in the jurisdiction where the individual is pursuing that particular position.
The exam consists of 200 multiple-choice questions that are related to the following five areas:
- Worksite Assessment (Approximately 68 questions)
- Hazard Control and Loss Prevention (Approximately 62 questions)
- Verification (Approximately 34 questions)
- Disaster Planning and Emergency Response (Approximately 28 questions)
- Professional Responsibility (Approximately 8 questions)
The exam-taker will have four hours to complete the exam and the exam-taker will receive a pass/fail grade based on whether or not he or she makes enough correct responses to meet or exceed the threshold set by the CCHEST.
The exact number of correct responses required to pass the exam varies depending on the specific version of the exam that the individual receives and the difficulty of each question included on that version of the exam.
In order to register for the OHST Exam, the individual seeking certification must have at least five years of experience with at least 35% of the duties carried out during that experience related to the health and safety field. An individual may also be eligible to take the exam if he or she has an associate’s degree or higher related to the health and safety field from a program accredited by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET).
If the individual meets one of these two requirements, he or she may register for the exam by submitting an application to CCHEST and, if the application is accepted, the individual will receive instructions on how to schedule a testing date with Pearson VUE. The current registration fee for the exam is $355, which includes both the application fee and the examination fee.
OHST Study Guide
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