Occupational and Environmental Safety professionals observing a laptop

Bachelor of Science in Occupational and Environmental Safety & Health Online

Reach the next level in your career as a detail-oriented, problem-solving leader who can protect people from work-related hazards, accidents and harm.

Next Apply Date: 2/24/25
Next Class Start Date: 3/10/25
Apply Now
Next Apply Date: 2/24/25
Next Class Start Date: 3/10/25

Program Overview

Consider the benefits of the occupational health & safety online program

The online B.S. in Occupational and Environmental Safety and Health (OESH) program gives you the background to develop and implement strategies that aid organizations in maintaining compliance with industry safety, health, and environmental regulations. This B.S. degree in occupational health and safety prepares you to complete the industry certification exams and obtain OSHA designations necessary for professional advancement.

Specialized coursework provides experience and knowledge you can use immediately in your workplace and add to your resume. You will gain a strong understanding of the toxicological effects of certain substances, chemicals and metals; learn to recognize and prevent occupational illnesses; analyze and examine environmental and public health risks, and more. A senior seminar guides you in a job search and certification exam preparation.

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Prepare for careers such as:

  • Environmental Health Officer
  • Health and Safety Advisor
  • Occupational Health and Safety Officer
  • Industrial Hygienist
  • Injury Prevention Specialist
Prepare for careers such as:+
  • Environmental Health Officer
  • Health and Safety Advisor
  • Occupational Health and Safety Officer
  • Industrial Hygienist
  • Injury Prevention Specialist

Learn industry-relevant skills that employers seek:

  • Recognition of occupational hazards
  • Industrial safety and environmental reporting
  • Industrial hygiene sampling and analysis
  • Water, wastewater, solid and hazardous waste treatment and management
  • Accident investigation and analysis
  • Risk assessment
  • Disaster preparedness and emergency management
Learn industry-relevant skills that employers seek:+
  • Recognition of occupational hazards
  • Industrial safety and environmental reporting
  • Industrial hygiene sampling and analysis
  • Water, wastewater, solid and hazardous waste treatment and management
  • Accident investigation and analysis
  • Risk assessment
  • Disaster preparedness and emergency management

Also available:

A-State offers a variety of undergraduate programs in a convenient online format. Explore our full range of online undergraduate programs.

Per Credit Hour: $282
Transfer Credits: Up to 90 hours
Credit Hours 120
Apply Now

Need More Information?

Call 866-621-8096

Call 866-621-8096

Tuition

Take advantage of our reasonable tuition and pay as you go

A-State’s online programs are affordable and convenient. You may also qualify for financial aid. Learn more.

The B.S. in Occupational and Environmental Safety and Health online program offers the same low, pay-by-the-course tuition to all U.S. residents. All fees are included. Tuition may be subject to change on a yearly basis.

Tuition breakdown:

Per Credit Hour: $282
Tuition Per Course: $846

Transfer your credits for lower tuition

Use our Tuition Estimator to see how affordable your degree could be. Slide the notch to the number of credits you've already earned—which may qualify for transfer credit—to get an estimate of what your degree might cost.

0
90
Transfer Credits: 0
Your Estimated Tuition: $Your Estimated Tuition:
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Transcripts sent from other colleges and universities will be evaluated, and accepted credits will be added to the student's A-State record. The Tuition Estimator is not a guarantee or predictor of the number of credit hours that will be accepted.

You may be closer to Graduation than you think!

A-State-approved credit for prior learning recognizes your previous accomplishments, reducing your tuition costs and time to graduation.

Calendar

Follow this schedule for our online occupational health and safety bachelor's degree

Our B.S. in Occupational and Environmental Safety and Health is a flexible online program featuring accelerated coursework and multiple start dates per year.

Please note Summer 1 and Summer 2 terms are 5 weeks in duration for this program.

View full calendar  + 

TermProgram Start DateApplication DeadlineDocument DeadlineRegistration DeadlinePayment DueLast Class Day
Spring 11/13/2512/16/2412/18/241/9/251/10/252/28/25
Spring 23/10/252/24/252/28/253/6/253/7/255/2/25

Now enrolling:

Next Apply Date 2/24/25
Start Class 3/10/25

Have questions or need more information about A‑State online programs?

Ready to take the next step toward earning your degree online from A-State?

Apply Now

Admissions

Your online degree in occupational health and safety admission checklist

Arkansas State University has a streamlined admission process that makes it easy for you to enroll in the B.S. in Occupational and Environmental Safety and Health online program. Enrollment specialists are available to walk you through the admission process, so you will be able to complete your application quickly.

Admission Requirements:

  • Online application
  • Official transcripts
  • 2.0 GPA for transferring credits
View all admission requirements +

There are several paths to admittance at A-State:

  • If you have 13 or more transferrable college credit hours, you would be admitted if you have a cumulative college GPA of at least 2.0 on previous college coursework
  • If you have 0-12 transferrable college credit hours and have been out of high school for five years or more, you would be admitted if you:
    • Have a high school diploma or state-approved equivalent
    • Have completed 12 or fewer earned college hours
    • Have never enrolled as a student at A-State
    Note: If you’re admitted as non-traditional first-time freshman, you may be required to successfully complete a predesignated curriculum of 12 hours (Certificate or Non-Degree). Upon successful completion, you will be transitioned to a degree seeking program.
  • If you have 0-12 transferrable college credit hours and have been in high school within the last 5 years, you would be admitted if you have one of the following:
    • 3.0 cumulative high school grad point average (or GED test score equivalent), OR
    • 19 minimum ACT super score or minimum 990 combined SAT super score, OR
    • Class rank in the top 20% of your graduating class

Submitting your application takes three easy steps: filling out the application, submitting your documents and paying the application fee.

  1. When completing the online application, select 100% online student and then complete all the steps on the online application.
  2. Pay $30.00 non-refundable application fee.
  3. Submit all official college transcripts.
  4. Submit official high school transcripts (if applicable).
  5. Submit official ACT/ SAT test scores (if applicable).

Note: If you have 0-12 transferrable college hours, test scores will still need to be submitted for reporting purposes to the Arkansas Department of Higher Education (ADHE); however, they are not needed for an admission decision. Accuplacer test scores are an acceptable alternative to ACT/SAT scores.

If you have any questions along the way, call us at 866-621-8096 and we’ll be happy to help answer questions.

Submit all documents to:

A-State Online
P.O. Box 2520
State University, AR 72467

Fax: 870-972-3548
Email: [email protected]

For Non-US Postal Mail Overnight Delivery Only:

A-State Online
c/o Central Receiving
2713 Pawnee St.
Jonesboro, AR 72401

Courses

Here’s what you will study in our online occupational health and safety degree courses

To earn your Bachelor of Science in Occupational and Environmental Safety and Health, you need to complete 120 credit hours of coursework. The program includes 38 credit hours of general education courses, 61 credit hours of major courses, 18 credit hours of support courses and three credit hours of electives. You can finish faster by transferring previously earned credit hours. Transfer credit hours will be evaluated during the admission process.

Visit the Course Registration page to view the course schedule for this degree.

Expand All

These courses must be taken to complete your degree.

Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Introduction to major concepts and issues in occupational health and safety, including general principles, human work environment, control of hazards in the occupational environment, and occupational safety and health program requirements.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Overview of traditional, emerging, and controversial issues associated with environmental health.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Introduction to the principles and practice of Industrial Hygiene through the study of chemical, physical, and biological agents responsible for occupational illness.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Principles of toxicology with industrial and environmental implications and the toxicological effects of certain dangerous substances, chemicals, metals, and environ­mentally relevant pesticides.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Introduction to control strategies to reduce or eliminate occupational hazards including administrative and engineering controls, ventilation, shielding, noise control, and biohazard, thermal stress and emission control.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Introduction to the most common types of field measurements, sampling collection methods, and laboratory analyses that are used in evaluating occupational health hazards.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Water quality, water supply, and wastewater disposal, as well as solid and hazardous waste management, treatment, and disposal technology.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Introduction to basic concepts of epidemiology and biostatistics as well as some of the basic techniques of public health and evidence-based medicine.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Incidence of occupational diseases and approaches to recognition and prevention.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Supervised field-based experience in a private or public industrial, hospital, or governmental agency.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Anticipation, identification, and evaluation of health and safety hazards and application of safety and health laws and OSHA regulations.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Introduction to EHS management principles in both office and industrial settings to develop safer and healthier work environments.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Occupational safety hazards associated with the construction industry. Emphasis is placed on OSHA policies, procedures, and standards as well as construction health and safety principles.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Introduction to principles and practices for understanding the nature of occupational hazard recognition, accident prevention, loss reduc­tion, and accident investigation analysis.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Introduction to risk analysis and ex­amination of the fundamental aspects of risk, focusing on environmental and public health risks including hazard identification, exposure assessments, and risk communication.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Introduction to the principles of ergonomics including fundamental ter­minology, concepts and applications of physiology, anthropometry, biomechanics, and engineer­ing to workplace design
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Pollutants, health effects, and technologies for controlling for emis­sions.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Capstone course covering preparation for job searches, presentation, and certification exam preparation. Students will give formal presentations on their internship.

Choose three of the following electives.

Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Advanced study in the area of industrial hygiene including noise, ventilation, and specialized calculations.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Principles and techniques applied to the protection of food for human consumption. Emphasis is placed on food safety and proper environmental control measures to minimize health dangers.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
An introduction to the basic requirements in industry for process safety management of chemical hazards and the tools used to implement process safety management systems.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
An introduction to the basic principles of fire safety including prevention, detection, relevant fire codes, and common control methods.

These courses must be taken to complete your degree.

Duration: Varies weeks
Credit Hours: 1
Two hours per week. It is recommended this course be taken concurrently with BIO 2103. Special course fee: $10.00. Fall, Spring, Summer.
Duration: Varies weeks
Credit Hours: 3
This course examines bacteria, viruses, rickettsiae, chlamydiae, molds, yeasts, and protozoans as they relate to human health. Lecture three hours per week. Special course fees may apply. Fall, Spring, Summer.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 2
A continuation of CHEM 1043 with a focus on the role of chemistry in human body functions.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
An all hazards approach is utilized to identify legal and ethical issues, cultural, political and religious issues, collective behaviors and group panic, role of the media, effective communication, and identification of resources for persons engaged in disaster and emergency preparedness.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Development of skills in written communication in STEM-related fields for a variety of purposes and audiences.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Overview of current environmental law, its administration and enforcement.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
For students in a variety of disciplines including the sciences, allied health fields, and education. Descriptive statistics for quantitative and qualitative data, normal distributions, correlation, linear regression, sample surveys, randomized comparative experiments, sampling distributions, estimation and hypothesis testing for means and proportions.

Students must take the following courses.

First-year course: Students must take the following Making Connections online course. If you transfer in more than 12 credit hours, you will not be required to take the Making Connections course. You may replace that 3-hour course with a 3-hour elective course.

First-year course (3 hours)
UC 1013

Communication Requirement (6 hours)
ENG 1003
ENG 1013

Mathematics Requirement (3 hours)
Students must take MATH 1023 or any MATH course that requires MATH 1023 as prerequisite.

Arts and Humanities Requirement (6 hours)
You must complete 6 credit hours from this section. At least one course must be selected from MUS 2503, THEA 2503, or ART 2503, and at least one course must be selected from ENG 2003, ENG 2013, or PHIL 1103.

Social Sciences Requirement (9 hours)
Students must complete 9 credit hours of Social Sciences courses. At least one course must be selected from POSC 2103, HIST 2763 or HIST 2773.

HIST 2763
HIST 2773
POSC 2103
SOC 2213
PSY 2013
MDIA 1003
HIST 1013
HIST 1023
ECON 2313
ECON 2323
ECON 2333

Life Science Requirement (4 hours)
Students must complete BIO 2203 with BIO 2201 lab.

Physical Sciences Requirement (4 hours)
Students must complete CHEM 1043 with CHEM 1041 lab.

Departmental Requirement (3 hours)

COMS 1203

Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Introduction to visual art for all students regardless of background or experience. Students learn how to develop cognitive and experiential responses to works of art. This course is for non-art majors and does not meet general education requirements for any degree in Art. Fall, Spring, Summer.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 1
The behavior of matter with respect to life processes, cells, tissues, functional anatomy of integumentary, skeletal, muscular and nervous systems, cat anatomy, nerve and muscle preparations and recordings. It is recommended this course be taken concurrently with BIO 2203.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Introduction to the biology of atoms, molecules, organelles and cellular functions, tissues, functional anatomy of integumentary, skeletal, muscular and central nervous systems, interaction with external environment.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 1
Special course fees apply. Prerequisite or co-requisite of CHEM 1043. Fall only.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
An introduction to selected fundamental concepts including dimensional analysis, mole concept, atomic and molecular structure, nomenclature, chemical reactions, thermochemistry, intermolecular interactions, gases, mixtures, kinetics, equilibrium and acid base chemistry. Fall only.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
The theory and practice of communication in interpersonal, small groups, and public speaking contexts, emphasizing proficiency in message organization, delivery, and critical thinking.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
This course examines national income accounting, inflation and unemployment, competing theories of national income, fiscal policy, the Federal Reserve System and monetary policy, and international trade.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Principles of resource allocation, supply and demand, consumer behavior, costs of production, the competitive model, oligopoly, and factor markets are examined.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Designed to give the student a basic understanding of our economic system. Basic economic concepts will be explored and contemporary economic problems and issues will be examined in light of the concepts learned.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Study and practice of fundamentals of written communication, including principles of grammar, punctuation, spelling, organization, and careful analytical reading. Prerequisite, with grade of C or better, for ENG 1013.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Continues the practice of ENG 1003 to develop further the skills learned in that course. Based on reading and discussion of various types of writing, the students’ essays will provide practice in different kinds of rhetorical development, including research and documentation.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Introduction to the analysis and interpretation of literary works from several historical periods ranging from early civilizations through the Renaissance.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Introduction to the analysis and interpretation of literary works from several historical periods ranging from the Renaissance to the present.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
WORLD HISTORY. The pre-modern world, with emphasis on the economic, political, and cultural processes that shaped societies before the rise of global interdependence.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
WORLD HISTORY. The modern world, with emphasis on the economic, political, and cultural processes that have increased global interdependence.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
United States history. Social, economic, and political developments from Columbus to the end of Reconstruction.
Duration: Varies Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
The social, economic and political developments Social, economic, and political developments from Reconstruction to the present. Fall, Spring, Summer.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Equations and inequalities, functions and graphs, polynomial and rational functions, exponential and logarithmic functions, systems of equations and inequalities, matrices, and miscellaneous topics. No credit given if taken following MATH 1054.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
A study of the interaction between society and mass communication through the lenses of history, theory, economics, culture, law, and technology.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
This course is an introduction to music for the listener who has had no formal training or experience. By exploring the history of Western Art music, learners will begin to connect the development of music with the changing of society and culture.
Duration: Varies Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Basic problems of philosophy based upon readings in the works of selected leading philosophers. A prerequisite for upper level philosophy. Fall, Spring.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
American politics. The constitution, government, and politics of the United States.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Study of the important scientific, principles of individual human behavior from biological, cognitive, social, and behavioral perspectives.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Human society and social behavior.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Provides students with an appreciation of how various artistic elements combine to produce theatrical productions. Fall, Spring, Summer.
Duration: 7 Weeks weeks
Credit Hours: 3
Required course for all first semester freshmen. Course content is centered around the skills and knowledge needed to be a successful ASU student, including academic performance, problem solving, critical thinking, self-management and group building skills, university policies and other relevant issues.

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