Environmental Health and Safety

RSS

Workplace violence in San Francisco, an e-cigarette shocker and a nutritional label change gets delayed. These were among the top stories featured on ISHN.com this week.

July 22, 2016, was a hot day in Poplar Bluff, Missouri. By late afternoon, the heat index had spiked to about 110 degrees. That was right around the time 23-year-old landscaper Tyler Halsey – whose shift had begun nine-and-a-half hours earlier at 7 – succumbed to heat stress. He was hospitalized with a core body temperature of more than 108 degrees and died the next day.

Cooling caps, canopies with misting hoses and training sessions on heat exposure are among the ways employers are keeping their workers safe during extreme heat, according to OSHA, which is compiling examples.

A majority of America’s nurses admit they are stressed out, consuming too much junk food and getting too little sleep, says a Ball State University study. The Impact of Perceived Stress and Coping Adequacy on the Health of Nurses: A Pilot Investigation, published in the online journal Nursing Research and Practice, found that nurses with high stress and poor coping had difficulty with patients, working in teams, communicating with co-workers and performing their jobs efficiently.

With a large part of the U.S. sweltering under high temperatures, it’s important to recognize the warning signs of heatstroke and take measures to avoid it. Outdoor workers face a double whammy: prolonged exposure to heat while engaging in physical exertion.

On April 28, while thousands of Americans were commemorating Workers Memorial Day, 21 year old Kevin Hartley was hard at work stripping a bathtub. Co-workers found Kevin unconscious and rushed him to the hospital where he died later that afternoon of cardiac arrest.

"Everyone — regardless of age, gender, pre-existing conditions, income or other factors — should have the opportunity to achieve the highest possible level of health, which encompasses physical, mental and social well-being,” says Surili Sutaria Patel, MS.

How economic indicators affect traffic fatality rates, what safety professionals want most and how CPR is getting an upgrade. These were among the top stories featured on ISHN.com this week.

An Arizona agricultural company that made its workers sleep in dangerously overcrowded and overheated converted school buses -- instead of the mobile housing units it promised on its H-2A visa application – has been hit with a preliminary injunction by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL).