Environmental Health and Safety Blog | EHSWire

According to the CDC, the healthcare industry is the fastest-growing sector of the U.S. economy—employing over 18 million workers.  These workers face a range of job hazards such as back injuries, exposure to human pathogens and stress. Many are unique to this industry, such as needle/sharps sticks, latex allergy, or injuries due to patient violence.  The CDC states that while many industry sectors have experienced reductions in occupational injury and illness, healthcare workers continue to experience incidents in the workplace, and cases of nonfatal occupational injury and illness among to healthcare workers are among the highest of any industry sector. 

Schools are out and many organizations bolster their staffs with temporary or seasonal help.  The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the American Staffing Association recently signed an alliance to work together to further protect temporary employees from workplace hazards.  OSHA has been monitoring and reporting on the state of temporary worker safety through its National Advisory Committee on Occupational Safety and Health's (NACOSH) Temporary Worker workgroup very closely as this sector has grown. ASA, founded in 1966, serves as the voice of the U.S. staffing and recruiting industry. With more than 1,600 members, ASA advances the interests of staffing and recruiting firms through advocacy, public relations and education.

This April OSHA updated its 40-year-old electric power construction standard rule to be more consistent with the corresponding general industry standard (last updated in 1994), to better protect workers performing electric power generation, transmission and distribution work. OSHA's Assistant Secretary of Labor Dr. David Michaels explained, "This long-overdue update will save nearly 20 lives and prevent 118 serious injuries annually." The new standards are far-reaching since they apply to all in the construction sector. Here's a summary of the main implications of this new rule, most of which will take effect this summer unless noted otherwise.

In their publication on Office Environment & Worker Safety & Health, NIOSH published that “Maintaining a healthy office environment requires attention to chemical hazards, equipment and work station design, physical environment (temperature, humidity, light, noise, ventilation, and space), task design, psychological factors (personal interactions, work pace, job control) and sometimes, chemical or other environmental exposures.

Since 1996, thousands of companies submit annual toxic chemical release data to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) required under Section 313 of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA). The information submitted by facilities is compiled in the Toxics Release Inventory. TRI helps support informed decision-making by industry, government, non-governmental organizations and the public. The EPA has also complied comparative reports to look for trends since EPCRA became law.

Work-related asthma (WRA) is an occupational lung disease associated with serious adverse health and socioeconomic consequences.   However, after years of study and collection of data, it is evident that there are many opportunities for intervention and prevention—especially among workers with similar occupational exposures.

On May 14^th, only 50 yards from where President Obama gave his speech in the shadow of the Tappan Zee Bridge, a state-of-the-art environmental monitoring station measured dust, noise, and vibration—all part of the plan for this infrastructure improvement project—to ensure public, personnel, and environmental safety.  

Everyone loves that 'new car smell'. Most people do not realize however, that the smell comes from the off-gassing of the materials used to build the car. These gases are often a wide assortment of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) released by the plastic, rubber, adhesives, and fibers used in the interior of the automobile.  Exposure to these should be minimized. 

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) is one of the nation’s leading forces in the fight to control asthma through its National Asthma Control Program and its National Center for Environmental Health (NCEH).  The White House, for its parts, has recently issued new initiatives to help control ozone to improve air quality.

Construction of the New NY Bridge, which began in July 2013, is vigilantly attended by eleven state-of-the-art environmental monitoring stations that continually measure dust and particle emissions, noise, and vibration levels. These real-time stations also read wind speed and direction to give exact information of where dust and particle emissions are heading or coming from, helping engineers and construction managers initiate controls.  The data, which is gathered 24/7 and recorded daily, is immediately available on smartphones, tablets, and laptop computers for project personnel to analyzed and to ensure worker and public safety.