From the safety culture in Texas to salary comparisons of safety professionals to OSHA’s VPP program and the importance of maintenance when it comes to SCBAs, here are the top OEHS-related stories of the week as featured on ISHN.com:

I received an email today from a professor at the Harvard Medical School. He wants me to buy a “Special Health Report” from Harvard Health Publications on the subject of positive psychology. “Happiness can be elusive. It can be fleeting. Too often, it can be lost in our modern world's swirl of stress, multitasking, and 24/7 news,” the sales pitch begins.

Texas Governor Rick Perry’s recent assertion that his state’s high on-the-job fatality rate is due to the dangerous nature of the energy industry is being contradicted by the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (COSH).

Want to compare your salary with those of your fellow safety professionals? The Board of Certified Safety Professionals (BCSP) has released results of a salary survey conducted in conjunction with the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE).

A “time-out” instituted to eliminate mistakes during surgery is not being complied with by a significant number of medical personnel, according to a new study. “Methodology and Bias in Assessing Compliance with a Surgical Safety Checklist,” published in the February issue of Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety, found that although surgical safety checklists -- such as the perioperative time-out -- have been shown to improve performance on a variety of patient safety measures, some of the items on it are being skipped.