Environmental Health and Safety

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September 25th to the 29th is National Employ Older Workers Week! The U.S. workforce is aging. The share of the labor force made up of people 55 years and older has increased from 12 percent in 1994 to 22 percent in 2014, and it is projected to reach approximately 25 percent in 2024.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) issued two safety alerts Wednesday to increase awareness among aircraft mechanics and pilots of the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning.

A screening test for early signs of carpal tunnel syndrome among new workers prior to job placement does not help prevent the disorder, according to a NIOSH-funded study at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri.

Five years after starting his first job with a landscaping crew in the suburbs of Seattle, Fredi Dubon decided he had enough and called it quits. The work days were long, sometimes 12 hours, but a bigger problem was having to inhale exhaust from his gas-powered leaf blower.

At FEMA’s request, OSHA personnel headed the Joint Field Office in Austin, Texas to develop an incident-specific health and safety plan to protect workers during the cleanup and recovery operations following the devastation wrought by Hurricane Harvey.

At state and federal level, there’s considerable resistance to planning for the various impacts of extreme weather events linked to climate change. To be sure, climate change is exacerbating the impacts of events like hurricanes. While the economic toll of this year’s storms is being calculated, the U.S. Department of Energy estimated in 2013 that weather-related power outages cost the economy between $18 billion and $33 billion each year.

Police are investigating the deaths of eight nursing home residents in Hollywood, Florida, where oppressive heat and humidity set in after Hurricane Irma knocked out much of the power in the area. The Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills said the residents, ages 71 to 99, died "following a prolonged outage of our air conditioning system due to Hurricane Irma."

Be prepared for a power outage with an emergency outage kit, which should always be stocked and easily accessible. Kit items include:

Construction workers all day long lift and heave, carry and climb, twisting their bodies into awkward positions to reach corners and ceilings. They scale walls. They work on rooftops, perched on support beams or thin ladders. These people definitely have more than their fair share of foot problems.