The staff of Industrial Safety & Hygiene News wishes you a happy 4th of July. Although many people will get today off work others – especially public service personnel who perform vital services – will be on the job. Whatever your work status, we hope you get a chance to enjoy the festivities and fireworks, grilling and sunshine, friends and family.
There’s still plenty of summer left, so we thought we’d provide you with some reminders about how to enjoy the season safely.
An alarming increase in the incidence of the black lung disease among the nation’s coal miners has led to a call by the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) and the United Steelworkers International Union (USW) for a new standard to protect miners from the silica dust that causes the disease.
In a letter to David Zatezalo, the head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), UMWA President Cecil Roberts and USW President Leo W. Gerard noted that changes in mining practices have led to increased exposure to silica for miners.
The University of Kentucky (UK) is being honored for implementing a voucher program that reduces UK employees’ cost of buying organic produce and encourages healthy eating. The school has just received an HR Innovation Award from the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources a community-supported agriculture (CSA) program that provides participants with vouchers toward shares of weekly produce from a participating local organic farm of their choice.
A worker’s high-profile death at a baseball stadium, workplace violence at a car dealership and not all types of sitting are equally bad for your health. These were among the top occupational safety and health stories featured on ISHN.com this week.
There is uncertainty surrounding law enforcement officers’ exposure to and health effects from opioids encountered while at work protecting the public. Over the past several years, the media have reported instances of opioid exposures and health effects among first responders and other public service workers across the U.S.
A new report finds about one in three cancer survivors (34.6%) reported having chronic pain, representing nearly 5.4 million cancer survivors in the United States. The report, appearing as a Research Letter in JAMA Oncology, finds one in six survivors (16%), representing about 2.5 million people in the U.S., reported suffering from high impact chronic pain that restricts daily functioning. Those rates are about double the rates in the general population.
Binge watching TV may be a greater risk factor for heart disease and premature death among African Americans than sitting at a desk job, according to new research in Journal of the American Heart Association, the Open Access Journal of the American Heart Association/ American Stroke Association.
According to the author, these latest findings suggest that television-watching may be the most harmful sedentary behavior.
A new study by researchers at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) found that close to 47% of workers have access to workplace health promotion programs, and among those with access, only 58% of workers take advantage of them. The study was recently published in the American Journal of Health Promotion.
Millennial lung health will get its first focus with $24.8 million grant
June 24, 2019
Does vaping have a long-term impact on someone’s lungs? Does the air quality where a person grows up put them at higher risk for respiratory conditions later in life? These are among the issues that will be examined in a large, first-of-its-kind longitudinal study of lung health led by Northwestern Medicine scientists in partnership with the American Lung Association (ALA).
The rise of measles cases overall in the U.S. has been widely reported on and includes, this year alone, outbreaks in California, Georgia, Maryland, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington. Although the disease was thought to be eradicated in the United States at the start of the 21st century, a resurgence has occurred in recent years, attributed in part to a resistance to vaccinations that stems from a study linking vaccinations to autism which has since been discredited.