Exposure assessment, biological surveillance design, and prevention frameworks for the four industries where respirable crystalline silica is concentrated – mining, construction, manufacturing, and engineered-stone fabrication. Built in the field, calibrated to the jurisdiction.
The science is settled. The exposure standards are in place. The control technologies – wet cutting, local exhaust ventilation, enclosed cabs, respiratory protection – have been understood for a century. And yet silicosis remains one of the most lethal occupational diseases on the planet, concentrated in the workforces with the least institutional voice to demand its prevention.
This is not a knowledge problem. It is a system design problem. The places where workers die of silica disease are not the places where the science is absent – they are the places where the science has not been translated into a functioning prevention system, with surveillance, accountability, and enforcement.
Our practice exists to close that translation gap. We work directly with mining houses, ministries, regulators, and international agencies to design, embed, and audit the silica-and-disease prevention systems that actually move the disease curve – measured in cases avoided, not reports filed.
Personal sampling, gravimetric and crystalline-silica analysis, and full-shift sampling protocols. If the dose is not measured, the control is not engineered.
Medical surveillance protocols, ILO chest-radiograph reading, lung-function trajectories, and TB co-morbidity tracking – built to detect cases at a stage where the disease is still reversible or arrestable.
Prevention systems without accountability infrastructure produce documentation. We design the data layer, the reporting cadence, and the regulatory feedback loop that makes prevention auditable.
Site walk-through, document review, regulatory baseline, and gap analysis against ILO and ACGIH benchmarks. The brief is the gap.
Personal sampling campaign, surveillance baseline, and case-finding. The dose, not the perception of the dose, becomes the basis for design.
Engineering controls, surveillance protocols, governance, and accountability infrastructure. Calibrated to the jurisdiction and workforce.
Capacity-building, regulatory hand-off, and data infrastructure. The system improves independently after the practice leaves.
Senior advisory to SAMA on silica-and-TB surveillance, occupational-disease compensation infrastructure, and the regional case registry across ten SADC countries. The mandate covers three million miners and dependants, the highest-burden silicosis population in the world.
Co-applicant on a CIHR-funded research programme building an AI-assisted radiograph reading pipeline for silicosis-and-TB detection in southern African mining cohorts. Partners – University of British Columbia, University of Cape Town, SAMA.
Technical lead on national OSH guidelines for mining, healthcare and retail under the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development. Silica-and-disease provisions across the mining annex, including OEL framework and surveillance schedule.
We do not have a silicosis knowledge problem. We have a silicosis system-design problem – and that is an entirely fixable thing.
Every silica engagement begins with a 45-minute consultation. We discuss the workforce, the regulatory environment, and what a credible prevention system would look like in your jurisdiction.
