public health
The Pump Handle
Tag archives for public health
Report illustrates worrisome trend of painkiller abuse among injured workers
Posted by The Pump Handle on October 12, 2012 Researchers studying workers’ compensation claims have found that almost one in 12 injured workers who begin using opioids were still using the prescription drugs three to six months later. It’s a trend that, not surprisingly, can lead to addiction, increased disability and more work loss – but few doctors are acting to prevent it.
Texas family planning cuts dismantling the safety net for women’s preventive care; researchers chronicle early impacts
Posted by The Pump Handle on October 5, 2012 In the west Texas city of San Angelo, Planned Parenthood has been serving local women since 1938. It was one of the very first places in Texas to have a family planning clinic. Now, due to state policy and funding changes, the clinic’s ability to serve all those in need is on shaky ground.
New study sheds light on the health effects of job insecurity
Posted by The Pump Handle on September 28, 2012 It’s not news that unemployment is bad for a person’s health. But it turns out that just the threat of unemployment is bad as well.
Report on chemical-asthma links a useful resource for workers at risk
Posted by The Pump Handle on September 21, 2012 It really is a chemical world, which is bad news for people with asthma. According to a recent report, at this very moment from where I write, I’m surrounded by objects and materials that contain chemicals that are known or suspected asthmagens — substances that can act as asthma triggers if inhaled.
Cats, cheezburgers and zombies: The new (and awesome) public health
Posted by The Pump Handle on September 14, 2012 Funny cats and disaster preparedness. It’s a marriage made in Internet heaven.
Access matters: U.S. lags behind in preventable deaths
Posted by The Pump Handle on September 7, 2012 Another study, another support beam in the argument that access to insurance coverage matters — a lot.
A different kind of Texas-style justice: Two nights at Austin’s Workers Defense Project
Posted by The Pump Handle on August 31, 2012 It’s Tuesday evening and as usual, the small parking lot outside the Workers Defense Project on Austin’s eastside is packed. The dusty lot is strewn with cars and pick-up trucks parked wherever they can fit and get in off the road. I’ve arrived well before the night’s activities begin, so I easily secure a spot. But my gracious guide and translator, a college intern named Alan Garcia, warns me that I might get blocked in. It happens all the time, he says.
‘An issue that affects all of us’: Young workers center takes on wage theft in the Rio Grande Valley
Posted by The Pump Handle on August 27, 2012 For six months, Jorge Rubio worked at a local chain of tortilla bakeries and taquerias in the cities of Brownsville and San Benito, both in the very southern tip of Texas. Rubio, 42, prepared the food, cleaned equipment, served customers. Eventually, he decided to quit after being overworked for months. On his last day of work, his employer refused to pay him the usual $50 for an 11-hour workday.
Medical marijuana progress under Obama not what advocates had hoped; recent crackdown puts patients in the middle
Posted by The Pump Handle on August 17, 2012 For years, Peter Rosenfeld was looking for an effective way to treat what doctors had diagnosed as severe and intractable migraines. He’d heard of medical marijuana, but thought it was a joke — that it was just a way for people to justify their marijuana use. Today, he’s a passionate advocate for medicinal marijuana and one of many advocates disappointed at recent federal actions.
This is public health. This is public health on sequestration.
Posted by The Pump Handle on August 3, 2012 To the long list of hard-to-pronounce bacteria and viruses that threaten people’s health can now be added one more threat: sequestration. Except sequestration isn’t a disease — well, unless you’d call Congress’ chronic inability to deal with the national debt in a fair and balanced way a disease.