Lose weight. Quit smoking. Finally finish that home repair to-do list. A new year is perceived by many as an opportunity to make changes that will lead to positive changes in one’s health, relationships, environment, etc. The start of a new year is also a good time for safety professionals to take stock of the safety status quo at their company, and find ways to fix problems or to take the company’s safety culture to the next level.

Wearables, artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things (IoT) were all featured prominently in this year’s top safety technology stories.

The hard hat celebrates a landmark birthday, drug use among construction workers – and how to test for it – and safety technology comes to the construction industry. These were among the top construction industry safety stories of 2019.

A small mattress manufacturing operation in Puerto Rico has succeeded in updating and improving work practices, improving machine guarding, increasing employee participation in safety and health activities, and improving the safety and health management system already in place at the site with help from Puerto Rico Consultation Services, which performs local assessments and consults as part of federal OSHA’s On-Site Consultation Program.

Hours of service regulations for truckers, workplace violence prevention and hazardous materials that endanger bees and people were among the top regulatory stories during 2019.

A large new study finds that women who lost weight after age 50 and kept it off had a lower risk of breast cancer than women whose weight remained stable, helping answer a vexing question in cancer prevention. The reduction in risk increased with the amount of weight lost and was specific to women not using postmenopausal hormones.

Two teenage employees working the overnight shift at a McDonald’s in Lima, Peru were electrocuted earlier this month – an incident which has led to a national conversation about workplace conditions at various companies in the country. News reports say Alexandra Porras Inga and Gabriel Campos Zap were electrocuted by a loose cable, possibly while mopping the floor of the restaurant.

In 1998, an historic landmark legal settlement between 46 states and the major tobacco companies, – along with individual settlements with four other states – required the companies to pay more than $246 billion over time as compensation for tobacco-related health care costs.

A ten-year spike in workplace deaths is unacceptable and calls for urgent action, the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH) said today. “As we prepare to gather with our families this holiday season, everyone who is committed to workplace safety will be thinking about the 5,250 U.S. workers who will never see their loved ones again,” said Marcy Goldstein-Gelb, co-executive director of National COSH.