Kim Krisberg
Kim Krisberg is a freelance public health writer living in Austin, Texas, and has been writing about public health for more than a decade. You can reach her at kkrisberg@yahoo.com.
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Posts by this author
October 6, 2015
Americans with lower incomes and educational attainment often live shorter, sicker lives than their wealthier, more educated counterparts. Contributors to these disparities can include access to care, hazardous living conditions, nutrition in early childhood, and personal behaviors. But what about…
October 5, 2015
Anyone who’s lived in a big, dense city is familiar with the sight of bicycle messengers weaving their way in between metro buses and taxi cabs, down side streets and around packed crosswalks, pedaling at impressive speeds and often with remarkable agility. Surprisingly, however, there’s little…
September 29, 2015
Collective bargaining and the fair-share fees that enable unions to negotiate for better working conditions that ultimately benefit all workers in a particular sector or workplace may truly be in peril, writes Lily Eskelsen García in The Nation.
In “Unions in Jeopardy,” García writes about the…
September 25, 2015
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers it one of five neglected parasitic infections in need of targeted public health action. And while its transmission is still considered rare in the U.S., it seems residents of Texas may be at greater risk than scientists previously thought.…
September 24, 2015
In the U.S., the gap in life expectancy by income is getting wider. To be even clearer: Life expectancy for people with higher incomes has gone up over time, while life expectancy for people earning lower incomes has actually declined.
In “The Growing Gap in Life Expectancy by Income: Implications…
September 23, 2015
For years, scientists have described climate change as a slowly emerging public health crisis. But for many, it’s difficult to imagine how a complex planetary phenomenon can impact personal well-being beyond the obvious effects of natural disasters, which climatologists say will happen more…
September 16, 2015
Investigative reporter Mark Collette at the Houston Chronicle interviewed more than a dozen former employees with a combined 213 years of experience on the production lines of Blue Bell’s flagship ice cream plant in Brenham, Texas, finding stories of routine food safety lapses and failures to…
September 10, 2015
When it comes to protecting workers, advocates often turn to science. Whether it’s research on the effectiveness of an intervention, new injury surveillance data or novel methods for pinpointing particularly vulnerable workers, science is key to advancing workplace safety. In our fourth edition of…
September 9, 2015
Paid sick leave, new rights for temp workers, and extending OSHA protections to public sector employees were among the many victories that unfolded at the state and local levels in the last 12 months and that we highlight in this year’s edition of “The Year in U.S. Occupational Health & Safety…
September 4, 2015
The ride-hailing mobile app Uber is desperate to prove it’s nothing more than a technology platform that connects drivers and passengers. As long as it can classify its workers as independent contractors, it can sidestep a whole host of labor and wage laws. But a court ruling issued earlier this…
September 2, 2015
It’s perhaps not surprising that single parents face a higher risk of living in poverty. However, a new study finds that such risk is much higher for single mothers than for single fathers, even when they both have similar jobs and education levels and work the same number of hours.
Recently…
August 28, 2015
Sociologist Jennifer Laird was researching unemployment among Mexican immigrants when she came upon some interesting numbers on black workers in the public sector and employment effects of the Great Recession. It piqued her interest and so she decided to keep digging.
She found that while public…
August 25, 2015
Reporter Anna Merlan at Jezebel chronicles the stories of women truck drivers who experienced severe sexual harassment and rape after enrolling in a training program. Her story begins with Tracy (who asked Merlan not to use her last name), who attended a driving school that contracts with Cedar…
August 21, 2015
With national school nutrition standards up for reauthorization in Congress, a new survey finds that most Americans support healthier school meals.
Earlier this week, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation released the findings of a national survey in which 86 percent of respondents said they support today’s…
August 20, 2015
More than 1,000 U.S. workers have died due to job-related events in the first seven months of 2015, according to new data from the U.S. Worker Fatality Database. Researchers estimate that total fatalities will likely reach 4,500 by the end of the year, which would mean that the nation’s…
August 18, 2015
The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration is no stranger to budget cuts — the agency is already so underfunded that it would take its inspectors nearly a century, on average, to visit every U.S. workplace at least once. In some states, it would take two centuries. Unfortunately,…
August 13, 2015
A Republican-led plan to ban unions at the Internal Revenue Service could leave agency workers without union representation and make all federal unions susceptible to similar tactics, according to Joe Davidson writing in the Washington Post.
Davidson reports that the plan, which was released…
August 11, 2015
One of the big criticisms that opponents of the Affordable Care Act love to trot out is its impact on the economy — one phrase you often hear is “job killer.” In fact, in 2011, Republicans in the House actually introduced legislation officially titled “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act…
July 31, 2015
Superstorm Sandy came ashore nearly three years ago, pummeling the New England and Mid-Atlantic coast and becoming one of the deadliest and costliest storms to ever hit the U.S. This week, the Sandy Child and Family Health Study released two new reports finding that the health impacts of Sandy…
July 28, 2015
Thousands of foreign workers in the U.S. — workers here legally through a visa program that allows employers to import workers from abroad — are abused, imprisoned and exploited. And the government does little to stop it, according to an investigation by BuzzFeed News. Reporters Jessica Garrison…
July 24, 2015
Technically, the recession is over. So it may come as a surprise to learn that more U.S. children are living in poverty right now than during the Great Recession. To be more specific: About 1.7 million more children live in low-income working families than just a few years ago.
The new and…
July 21, 2015
Because there can never be enough research to illustrate the positive impact of public health policy on people’s health, here’s another one. This one found that comprehensive smoke-free indoor air laws resulted in a lower risk of asthma symptoms and fewer asthma-related doctor’s visits.
Based on…
July 17, 2015
Every day in the U.S., more than 40 people die after overdosing on prescription painkillers. Deaths from a more notorious form of opiates — heroin — increased five-fold between 2001 and 2013. Addressing this problem — one that’s often described as a public health crisis — requires action on many…
July 14, 2015
At The Nation, leaders in the domestic workers movement write about what’s next in their efforts to improve conditions for the thousands who work in people’s homes, often with no rights or recourse.
Authored by Ai-jen Poo and Andrea Cristina Mercado, both with the National Domestic Workers Alliance…
July 10, 2015
Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, American women are saving hundreds of dollars on birth control, according to the first study to document the impact of health reform on prescription contraception spending.
To conduct the study, which was published this month in Health Affairs, researchers…
July 8, 2015
A key argument in the movement to expand sick leave to all workers is that such policies help curb the spread of contagious diseases. And there are few workplaces where that concept is more important than in health care settings, where common diseases can be especially dangerous for patients with…
July 7, 2015
Recycling our garbage is good for the planet, but a new report finds that the workers who process our recyclable materials often face dangerous and unnecessary conditions that put their health and safety at serious risk.
Released in late June, “Sustainable and Safe Recycling: Protecting Workers Who…
June 30, 2015
This week, the Center for Public Integrity launched a new investigative series into the failure of regulators to protect workers for toxic exposures. The series begins with the story of a bricklayer who developed acute silicosis after exposure to silica, a deadly substance that threatens more than…
June 26, 2015
A common hurdle in the field of occupational health and safety is delivering what can sometimes be life-saving information to the people who need it most. After all, not all employers are amenable to workplace health and safety education. But what if safety advocates could find and connect with the…
June 25, 2015
Analyzing online searches and social media activity has often been suggested as a way to track and maybe even predict the spread of diseases. And it’s a great idea — if it’s done right, it could offer public health workers real-time surveillance and a jumpstart at containing dangerous outbreaks.…