From an outbreak of mysterious lung-injury deaths to America’s near loss of measles elimination status, the beginning of the end of the U.S. HIV epidemic to the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), CDC worked around the clock – and around the globe – to protect Americans from domestic and global health threats in 2019.

Office workers who spend long hours on the job are more likely to have high blood pressure, including a type that can go undetected during a routine medical appointment, according to a new study published today in the American Heart Association’s journal Hypertension. High blood pressure affects nearly half of Americans ages 18 and older and is a primary factor in more than 82,000 deaths per year.

"OSHA will continue to use BLS data for enforcement targeting within its jurisdiction to help prevent tragedies," said Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Occupational Safety and Health Loren Sweatt. "Inspections for OSHA were up, and we will work with state plans so employers and workers can find compliance assistance tools in many forms or call the agency to report unsafe working conditions. Any fatality is one too many."

The percentage of high school seniors who reported vaping marijuana within a month of being surveyed jumped from 7.5 percent in 2018 to 14 percent in 2019, according to a study published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The data analyzed in the study indicate that this was the second largest single-year jump for teen use of any substance since the survey began in 1975 – second only to another vaping-related increase, of nicotine use, between 2017 and 2018.

Environmental cold can affect any worker exposed to cold air temperatures and puts workers at risk of cold stress. As wind speed increases, it causes the cold air temperature to feel even colder, increasing the risk of cold stress to exposed workers, especially those working outdoors, such as recreational workers, snow cleanup crews, construction workers, police officers and firefighters.

A pattern of harmful alcohol consumption, or heavy drinking, increases level of blood biomarkers indicating heart tissue damage, according to new research published today in the Journal of the American Heart Association, the open access journal of the American Heart Association.

Amazon operates on-site emergency clinics, named AmCare, for workers. The idea is that employees can go to those facilities, which have on-staff, licensed emergency medical technicians and injury prevention specialists, and get treated faster without needing to travel off-site. As convenient as this may sound, however, reports suggest there are some issues with that approach. Here are some of them.

Dollar Tree gets hit with a new set of the same old violations, Exxon loses a legal bid to keep refinery blast info from the CSB and nominations open for National Safety Council awards for safety professionals. These were among the top stories featured on ISHN.com this week.

Air pollution is known to be a serious health risk –a cause of asthma, heart disease, stroke, lung cancer and a factor, according to the World Health Organization, in an estimated seven million deaths worldwide every year. A growing body of research suggests air pollution may also be harming our brains. In recent years, new areas of study have opened up into how air pollution might affect our minds and the way we think and feel.

Although the CDC recommends that people get vaccinated for the flu early in the fall, getting vaccinated now can still be beneficial in protecting you from the flu virus. Furthermore, vaccination should continue to be offered throughout the flu season, even into January or later.