Regulation
The Pump Handle
Category archives for Regulation
Growing gap between wages, rents means healthy housing is increasingly out of reach
Posted by The Pump Handle on March 29, 2013 In California, a minimum wage worker has to work at least 98 hours in a week to afford a two-bedroom unit at fair market rental prices. In Texas, that worker would have to work between 81 and 97 hours in a week, and in North Carolina it’s upward of 80 hours per week.
End Game Strategies for Tobacco Control
Posted by The Pump Handle on March 26, 2013 A recent Op-Ed in the New York Times proposes an end game strategy for ending tobacco use in the U.S.
A hearing on worker safety rule would open public debate, but White House thwarts it
Posted by Celeste Monforton, DrPH, MPH of George Washington University School of Public Health & Health Services on March 20, 2013 Representatives of U.S. foundries met with White House officials behind closed doors to complain about a not-yet-proposed OSHA regulation. It was the group’s second such meeting. But they wouldn’t be necessary if the White House would simply allow OSHA’s public hearing process to take place.
Study finds high support for public health interventions, few worries about encroaching ‘nanny state’
Posted by The Pump Handle on March 18, 2013 A new study finds that the public does, indeed, support legal interventions aimed at curbing noncommunicable diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and obesity. However, they’re more likely to support interventions that create the conditions that help people make the healthy choice on their own.
Houston excavation company risks workers’ lives, now it should lose government contracts
Posted by Celeste Monforton, DrPH, MPH of George Washington University School of Public Health & Health Services on March 5, 2013 Municipalities should see a red flag when one of its major construction contractors is found willfully and repeatedly violating worker safety standards.
Hundreds of Texas workers protest in memory of fallen construction workers
Posted by The Pump Handle on March 1, 2013 Texas construction workers who’ve lost their lives on unsafe worksites may be gone, but they certainly haven’t been forgotten. Earlier this week, hundreds of Texas workers and their supporters took to the streets to demand legislators do more to stop preventable injury and death on the job.
Calling for a public health approach to control distracted driving from mobile devices
Posted by Celeste Monforton, DrPH, MPH of George Washington University School of Public Health & Health Services on February 28, 2013 The co-editor of the Journal of Public Health Policy calls on the public health community to take on the social problem of distracted driving caused by mobile devices.
Remembering C. Everett Koop’s words about gun violence
Posted by Celeste Monforton, DrPH, MPH of George Washington University School of Public Health & Health Services on February 26, 2013 Surgeon General C. Everett Koop is being remembered for his pronouncements about second-hand tobacco smoke and HIV. Lesser known is his advocacy for strong gun control laws.
New study lifts the lid on unhealthy kitchen conditions in migrant farmworker housing
Posted by The Pump Handle on February 22, 2013 For many migrant farmworkers, the health risks don’t stop at the end of the workday. After long, arduous hours in the field, many will return to a home that also poses dangers to their well-being. And quite ironically for a group of workers that harvests our nation’s food, one of those housing risks is poor cooking and eating facilities.
Carnival workers’ reality: “If we complain, they’ll send us back to Mexico”
Posted by Celeste Monforton, DrPH, MPH of George Washington University School of Public Health & Health Services on February 21, 2013 A report about the H-2B guest worker program describes the mistreatment and abuse suffered by workers in the U.S. carnival and fair industry.