Prepping for back-to-school means buying new supplies, clothes, and backpacks, but it's also time to make sure your children are protected from cancer. This fall, the American Cancer Society (ACS) is reminding parents that making sure girls and boys ages 11-12 receive the HPV (human papillomavirus) vaccine should be part of the back-to-school routine.

In the study, “Suicide and drug‐related mortality following occupational injury,” published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, researchers found that workplace injury significantly raises a person’s risk of suicide or overdose death. Earlier studies have shown that injured workers have elevated rates opioid use and depression.

Compared to small and "micro" businesses, larger companies have made more progress toward introducing the Total Worker Health (TWH) approach to worker health and safety, reports the August Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. "Our results indicate a need for intervention research that specifically targets microbusinesses and small businesses, especially in light of the outsized health and safety risks encountered in these sectors of the economy," write Liliana Tenney, MPH, and colleagues of Colorado School of Public Health, University of Colorado, Aurora.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has found Altor Inc. - a construction company based in Washington Township, New Jersey and its president Vasilio Saites in contempt of court for failing to pay $412,000 in penalties assessed by OSHA. The agency cited Altor for numerous safety violations, including multiple willful violations of OSHA’s fall protection standards.

A pollutant associated with climate change is sulfur dioxide, a component of smog. Sulfur dioxide and closely related chemicals are known primarily as a cause of acid rain. But they also reflect light when released in the atmosphere, which keeps sunlight out and creates a cooling effect. Volcanic eruptions can spew massive amounts of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere, sometimes causing cooling that lasts for years.

Leaders may not be at the “front line of safety,” but they must have an ability to “see safety” - to understand how visual bias impacts safety programs and how those biases influence not only their operating staff, but also themselves. By understanding their own visual literacy gaps, and those of others, leaders can develop a higher degree of empathy for the reality of getting work done safely.

A fatality that occurred when an Atlanta transit train struck equipment that was on the train tracks was the result of a flagperson moving the on-track equipment (OTE) outside of the restriction area without authority and on-track protection. That’s the conclusion of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which investigated the incident.

In 1970, the Occupational Safety Health Act created a government body tasked with nothing more or less than helping ensure safe workplace conditions for all. The most recent report from OSHA shows that the organization is struggling in that mission. There are several reasons for the downturn in workplace safety OSHA describes in its most recent report on inspections and fatalities in U.S. workplaces. But first, we need the details:

If you’re seeing the hashtag #SafeHands a lot these days, it’s because the International Safety Equipment Association (ISEA) has launched an awareness and education campaign to help workers and employers focus specifically on the safety of hands, the second mostly commonly injured body part in the workplace.

OSHA has cited Payne Enterprises Inc. – a plumbing contractor based in Dayton, Ohio – for exposing employees to multiple trenching and excavation hazards following an employee fatality. The company faces penalties of $145,860.