EXTREME
MAKEOVERS
Tips for Improving EHS Graphics
BY ED RUTKOWSKI
Bob Emery talks about data the way a novelist might discuss verbs. Currently vice president for Safety, Health, Environment and Risk Management at the University of Texas (UT) Health Science Center at
Houston, Emery has worked in
OEHS for 25 years, and he’s certain
that the main reason why his OEHS
colleagues struggle to win the ap-
proval of management is a seem-
ingly innate difficulty making
data—the dry essence of exposure
monitoring—come alive.
“We function largely in the field of
prevention, so on a good day, nothing
happens,” Emery says. “The problem is
that we’ve got to get better at explaining
to various stakeholders all of the work
that went on behind the scenes to make
nothing happen. And part and parcel of
that is showing data.”
The event that crystallized the impor-
tance of data presentation for Emery was
Tropical Storm Allison, which dumped
35 inches of rain on Houston in June
2001 and caused $5 billion worth of
damage across Texas. On UT’s Houston
campus, one of the university’s major
buildings flooded, rendering the bottom
floor unusable. In the days following reoccupation of the upper floors, Emery’s
team at the Health Science Center created graphs of indoor air quality data
and posted them by the elevators, where
University employees were sure to notice
them. Instead of simply listing the data,
the graphs clearly showed that air quality measurements were within ASHRAE
guidelines for IAQ.
“When they were waiting to go to
their floor, they could actually see what
the relative humidity levels were, what
the temperature was—and they could see
this within the context of these red lines
that showed the ASHRAE recommenda-
tions,” Emery recalls. “We had hardly any
indoor air quality complaints, I believe
largely because people could see the data
within the context of the reference lines.”
For Emery, data is more than raw
numbers; it’s part of a narrative. When
his employees show him a problematic
graph, he’ll say, “You’ve got a good story
to tell, but this sure ain’t telling it.” He
has ample opportunity to share this judg-
ment with UT students, too: 20 percent of
his appointment is dedicated to teaching
a class on communicating public health
information. His lectures incorporate the
ideas of American statisticians Edward
Tufte and John Tukey, who have made
important contributions to the field of in-
formation design, and he often presents
on the topic at conferences.
The Synergist: If you were to make a
broad generalization, how would you
characterize most OEHS professionals’
skills in data presentation?
Bob Emery: I'm struggling to find a polite term for “atrocious.” I don’t mean
that in a bad way; it’s just sometimes
we’re so focused on the trees that we
miss the forest. And that’s really what
drove my interest in graphics, because in
my field, I see confusing graphics time
