Environmental Health and Safety

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The Board of Certified Safety Professionals' (BCSP) Foundation received many applications for scholarships and, after much consideration, recently provided 37 determined safety, health, and environmental (SH&E) students with $5,000 each to support their continued dedication to the development of their knowledge and the improvement of safety practice.

Cority, the most trusted environmental, health, safety, and quality (EHSQ) software for assuring client success, today announced the general availability of Cority Analytics, the company’s cloud-based predictive analytics solution. Designed to empower EHS leaders to delve deeper into their data and act on insights, Cority Analytics enables organizations to proactively identify and mitigate workplace risk to ultimately drive down the human and financial costs of workplace accidents.

During evaluations of construction workplaces, investigators with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) identified issues that could affect indoor environmental quality (IEQ) such as: a lack of dust control; the use of high emission building materials and limited communication with occupants about hazards related to the work being done.

As public health officials work to contain the mysterious, pneumonia-like virus that has gripped Asia, people are taking measures to protect themselves against the expanding outbreak. The yet-unnamed coronavirus, a family of viruses that affect the respiratory tract, has killed 41 people and sickened more than 1,000 at last count, including a man in Washington state and woman in Chicago who both had recently traveled to Wuhan.

Millions in OSHA fines for one roofing contractor, 2020 is off to a deadly start for the poultry industry and OSHA celebrates its 50th anniversary. These were among the top stories featured on ISHN.com this week.

The AIHA has published the second edition of Recognition, Evaluation, and Control of Indoor Mold. This second edition of the book provides health information which is aligned with the current epidemiology and medical information on environmental allergens, updated taxonomy of the fungi and mold remediation guidelines, and the most current and comprehensive discussion on the basic practice of identifying mold damage, the evaluation of the samples that are collected, and the process of remediation.

With 2020 barely underway, the poultry industry has already experienced two workplace fatalities, at facilities in two different states. The National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH) says those incidents, along with a government-approved increase in line speeds at poultry slaughterhouses, illustrate the need for safety reforms in the industry. The poultry industry maintains that employees are considerably safer now on the job than in the past, and points to Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data to back up that claim.

Some of the most common injuries in construction occur when workers lift, stoop, kneel, twist, grip, stretch, reach overhead, or work in other awkward positions to perform a task. These musculoskeletal disorder (WMSD) injuries can include back problems, carpal tunnel syndrome, tendinitis, rotator cuff tears, sprains, and strains.

When OSHA celebrates an anniversary, it does it up big. The federal agency otherwise known as the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) plans to commemorate its 50th anniversary this year with a yearlong celebration of past achievements, current events and future initiatives. The Williams-Steiger Occupational Safety and Health Act signed into law by President Richard M. Nixon on December 29, 1970 – that one that created OSHA – gave the federal government the authority to set and enforce safety and health standards for most of the country's workers.

The Journal of Clinical Investigation (JCI) recently published “Viewpoint” articles by Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine professors who warn that global climate change is likely to unlock dangerous new microbes, as well as threaten humans’ ability to regulate body temperature.