Environmental Health and Safety

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Winter weather creates a variety of hazards that can significantly impact everyday tasks and work activities. These hazards include slippery roads/surfaces, strong winds and environmental cold. Learning how to prepare for work during the winter, protect workers from the cold and other hazards that can cause illnesses, injuries, or fatalities, is essential to maintaining a safe work environment and completing tasks successfully.

Asthma, back pain, and congestive heart failure are among the conditions showing reductions in health care costs in one large employer's disease management (DM) program, reports a study in the February Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, official publication of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM).

Some forty trade unionists and researchers coming principally from Belgium, France, The Netherlands, Spain and Italy took part in a seminar organised jointly by the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) and the Belgian association Santé & Solidarité.

New York Presbyterian-Columbia University Medical Center in Northern Manhattan last year replaced linen laundry bags with thin plastic bags that broke and needlessly exposed workers to laundry contaminated with blood, bodily fluids and other infectious materials.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) is seeking public comment from partners and the public to help evaluate the impact of the National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA). Feedback is being accepted until closing of the federal docket on March 24, 2015.

A measure currently being considered by lawmakers is coming under fire by occupational safety advocates who say that it would delay compensation for people suffering from mesothelioma and require victims to disclose personal information – such as social security numbers – thus making them vulnerable to identify theft.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is inviting small businesses, governments and not-for-profit organizations to participate as Small Entity Representatives (SERs) on a Small Business Advocacy Review (SBAR) Panel for the federal plan that EPA is developing as part of the Clean Power Plan.