Environmental Health and Safety

RSS

The 2014 Supplement to the Documentation of the Threshold Limit Values and Biological Exposure Indices, 7th Edition is now available. The Supplement contains Documentation for the substances that were on the Notice of Intended Changes for 2013, with their corresponding values and notations, that have been approved and adopted as Threshold Limit Values (TLVs®) and Biological Exposure Indices (BEIs®).

The purpose of this NIOSH Science Blog is to explain what is currently known about an important aspect of respirator filtration.  For decades, respirator researchers have been asked whether filters need to be tested with aerosols similar to those encountered in the environment

A study from the University of Sydney finds that lower back pain (LBP) is a significant cause of work-related disability. It affected 26 percent of the global population in 2010, and varied considerably with age, gender and region.

The Board of Certified Safety Professionals (BCSP) has launched Safety Salary Source, a new reporting tool that allows users to view survey data on safety, health and environmental (SH&E) practitioners' salaries in new detail.

Cleaning up a site in preparation for a tour by potential investors has resulted in a $2,359,000 for Olivet Management LLC, a real estate development and management company that owns the former Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center in Dover Plains, N.Y.

OSHA has developed Safe Patient Handling: Preventing Musculoskeletal Disorders in Nursing Homes, a new brochure that addresses the prevention of musculoskeletal disorders among nursing home and residential care workers.

In support of its alliance with OSHA, AIHA has developed a new “QuickTips” sheet to provide OHS professionals with information on safe patient handling and mobility.

Welding fumes are composed of metals and most fumes contain a small percentage of manganese. There is a concern by workers, employers, and health professionals about potential neurological effects associated with exposure to manganese in welding fumes. NIOSH has been conducting research and reviewing the published scientific literature to assess this problem.

The traditional occupational safety and health programs of the twentieth century were designed, by and large, to prevent work-related injury, illness, and death in workplaces where hazards usually were recognizable and predictable. In the twenty-first century, scientists and decision-makers have had to develop additional skills and strategies to address another type of hazard: the risks that emergency responders face in the line of duty from unpredictable, uncontrolled conditions encountered in large-scale disasters.