The National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH) has announced the winners of its 2019 Health and Safety awards, which recognize outstanding contributions towards empowering workers and the fight for safer workplaces and communities. The awards will be presented on Wednesday evening, December 4th, as part of the National Conference on Worker Safety and Health (COSHCON19).

Better roadway design, making bicyclists more visible and head protection are what’s needed to reduce the number of fatal and serious crashes involving motor vehicles and bicycles, said the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) during a public meet this week. In the NTSB’s first examination of bicyclist safety on U.S. roadways since its last report on this topic in 1972, the agency said critical changes were needed to address the recent rise in fatal bicycle crashes involving motor vehicles, even as overall traffic deaths fell in 2018.

The CDC’s Climate and Health Program is celebrating 10 years of supporting state, tribal, local, and territorial public health agencies as they prepare for the continuing health impacts of a changing climate. In 2019 the program provided communities with new resources, tools, and peer-reviewed publications addressing the impacts of climate hazards.

With November being National Diabetes Awareness Month and Americans collectively spending nearly $200 billion per year on obesity-related health costs, the personal-finance website WalletHub released a report on 2019's Fattest States in America. To determine which states contribute the most to America’s overweight and obesity problem, WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across 29 key metrics.

A blaze that broke out in the engine room of a towing vessel on the Lower Mississippi River was probably caused by an engine lube oil leak that ignited off a hot surface near the starboard main engine turbocharger. That’s according to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which has completed its investigation into the September 12, 2018 incident.

Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health Loren Sweatt spoke at the Pennsylvania Governor's Safety and Health Conference on October 28, 2019.

The National Safety Council (NSC) has received a $125,000 sponsorship from Amazon to support women in safety. The sponsorship will go toward bolstering three NSC initiatives: the Council’s Marion Martin Award, Women in Safety Scholarship program and Women’s Division. Although women make up nearly half of the U.S. workforce, they comprise only 19% of employees within the safety industry.

As of the end of October, there were 1,888 confirmed and probable lung injury cases associated with use of e-cigarette, or vaping, products reported to the CDC by 49 states (all except Alaska), the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Approximately 70% of patients are male; the median age of patients is 24 years and ages range from 13 to 75 years and 79% of patients are under 35 years old.

Heart attacks killed 33 of the 82 firefighters who died while on duty in the U.S. last year, according to a report from the U.S. Fire Administration (USFA). “Firefighter Fatalities in the United States” is compiled annually by the USFA to identify and analyze all on-duty firefighter fatalities to increase understanding of their causes and how they can be prevented.

A report by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) shows a strong correlation between hazardous jobs and opiate addiction and overdoses in that state. The 21-page study titled Opioid-related Overdose Deaths in Massachusetts by Industry and Occupation, 2011-2015 found that there were a total of 5,580 opioid-related overdose deaths in Massachusetts from 2011 through 2015. Of the 4,284 worker death certificates deemed comprehensive enough to study, 1,096 were found to be employed in construction/extraction.