lborkowski

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Liz Borkowski

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August 17, 2015
The CDC's National Center for Health Statistics has published an early release of findings on US health insurance coverage from January - March 2015, and the numbers show a continued decline in the number of US residents without health insurance. The report presents findings from the National…
August 15, 2015
Beginning on Labor Day 2012, we have published a yearbook on U.S. occupational health and safety. Here are the links to each year's report: Yearbook 2017 Yearbook 2016 Yearbook 2015 Yearbook 2014 Yearbook 2013 Yearbook 2012  
August 10, 2015
A few of the recent pieces I've liked: Barbara Ehrenreich at the Guardian: In America, only the rich can afford to write about poverty Victor Yocco at Vox: What it’s like to be a recovering alcoholic in an office where booze is everywhere Mary McKenna at Germination: CDC to Congress: Raise our…
August 3, 2015
Last week, Nigeria met an important milestone: An entire year without a reported case of polio. If the WHO confirms the absence of the virus in samples taken from people in previously affected areas, Nigeria will no longer be on the list of countries where the disease is endemic. Another two years…
July 30, 2015
On July 30th, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed into law the Social Security Amendment Act that created Medicare and Medicaid. At the signing ceremony, President Johnson enrolled President Truman as the first Medicare beneficiary and gave a speech on the importance of the legislation. The…
July 20, 2015
Back in 2009, the Colorado Family Planning Initiative started providing free IUDs and other contraceptive implants to low-income women getting care at state Title X family planning clinics. As I described previously, funds from an anonymous foundation supported the purchase of the devices, as well…
July 13, 2015
A few of the recent pieces I've liked: The excellent "Unequal Risk" series by the Center for Public Integrity's Jim Morris, Jamie Smith Hopkins, and Maryam Jameel ("Workers in America face risks from toxic exposures that would be considered unacceptable outside the job — and in many cases are…
July 1, 2015
The Republican-led House Appropriations Committee's FY 2016 Labor, Health and Human Services funding bill contains a single sentence that could dramatically set back public health: "None of the funds appropriated in this Act 4 may be used to carry out title X of the PHS Act." Title X is a federal…
June 29, 2015
by Peter Dooley, CSP, CIH On Thursday June 25 forty groups around the country delivered 25,000 petition signatures calling on Hyundai to support good jobs throughout its supply chain. Altogether, about 25 national, state and local organizations—unions, the faith community, community groups, health…
June 24, 2015
Innovation in healthcare doesn't just mean new drugs and devices; sometimes, studying and updating procedures can result in big improvements for patients' health. In the New York Times, Gina Kolata reports on procedure changes hospitals have made to improve care for heart-attack patients: With no…
June 15, 2015
Last week, Oregon's Senate and House passed a bill that requires businesses with 10 or more employees to let them earn up to 40 hours of paid sick time each year. Governor Kate Brown is expected to sign the bill, which would make her state the fourth in the nation mandating paid sick days.…
June 9, 2015
By Dan Neal Ensuring that U.S. workers return home from work healthy and in one piece requires pushing OSHA and other agencies to do more at the state and national levels to improve standards and aggressively enforce them. Meanwhile, health and safety advocates and workers must speak out loudly for…
June 8, 2015
A 68-year-old South Korean man recently returned from a multi-country trip to the Middle East developed a cough and fever. He visited four health facilities before being diagnosed with MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome), and in the process spread the virus to several more people. Now, 50…
June 4, 2015
Fifty years ago, on June 7, 1965, the Supreme Court issued the landmark Griswold v. Connecticut decision, which struck down a Connecticut law that criminalized the encouragement or use of contraception. Estelle Griswold, executive director of Planned Parenthood of Connecticut, and Dr. C. Lee Buxton…
May 21, 2015
A few of the recent pieces I’ve liked: Robin Marantz Henig in the New York Times Magazine: The Last Day of Her Life David Heath at the Center for Public Integrity: American Chemistry Council lied about lobbying role in flame retardants, consultant says Maryn McKenna at Germination: The Avian Flu…
May 11, 2015
[Update below (5/15/15)] by Cora Roelofs, ScD Kudos to Sarah Maslin Nir for shedding light on the working conditions faced by nail salon workers in her recent two-part New York Times exposé “Perfect Nails, Poisoned Workers.” I and others across the country have been working to document and…
May 11, 2015
The Institute for Women’s Policy Research has released a new Status of Women in the States report that show how women’s health has improved, or not, on a variety of different measures. It’s no surprise that they found disparities both between states and between racial and ethnic groups. A news…
May 7, 2015
Last week Tyson Foods, the largest US poultry producer, announced that it was working to eliminate the use of human antibiotics in its US broiler chicken flock by September 2017. (Broilers are chickens raised for meat.) Tyson Foods President and CEO Donnie Smith cited global concerns over…
May 4, 2015
by Anthony Robbins, MD, MPA When Bernie Sanders announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for President, I cheered. For the first time in my life, we would know what a candidate for President really believed and what she or he would do. For me, I am doubly pleased, as I agree with…
April 27, 2015
The 2015 Pulitzer Prize winner for Public Service went to South Carolina’s Post and Courier for the chillingly effective series “Till Death Do Us Part,” about the state’s inadequate response to domestic violence. Doug Pardue, Glenn Smith, Jennifer Berry Hawes, and Natalie Caula Hauff conducted an…
April 20, 2015
Last week, President Obama signed long-awaited legislation that will put an end to periodic panic at the prospect of massive, sudden cuts to Medicare physician payments. The bipartisan “doc fix” bill repeals the Sustainable Growth Rate formula that aimed, but failed, to control growth in Medicare…
April 13, 2015
A few of the recent pieces I've liked: L.V. Anderson at Slate: We Should Have a Better Condom by Now. Here’s Why We Don’t Emily Badger and Christopher Ingraham at Wonkblog: The rich get government handouts just like the poor. Here are 10 of them. Mark Binelli in the New York Times: Inside America’s…
March 30, 2015
In 2006, UPS driver Peggy Young became pregnant and asked for lighter-duty work that would comply with her doctor’s advice to limit lifting (to packages weighing 20 pounds or less during the first 20 weeks of her pregnancy, and 10 pounds or less during the remainder). UPS denied her request. Young…
March 23, 2015
A study published in a new supplement to the American Journal of Public Health investigates the extent to which public health activities in metropolitan areas suffered during the recent recession. In "Economic Shocks and Public Health Protections in US Metropolitan Areas," Glen P. Mays and Rachel A…
March 16, 2015
In 2003, the city of London took a dramatic step in the battle against traffic congestion: It implemented a congestion charge of £5 for those driving private vehicles into an eight-square-mile central congestion zone on weekdays between 7am and 6:30pm. The fees were increased twice, and since 2011…
March 9, 2015
A few of the recent pieces I've liked: Two related pieces at ReportingonHealth.org: Rita Beamish, "Older Americans Act limps along at 50" and Ryan White, "Intensive program keeps elderly at home out of nursing home" Gillian B. White in The Atlantic: Unplanned Births: Another Outcome of Economic…
March 4, 2015
Stanford medical student Nathan Lo reportedly caused a stir at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) last week when he presented a new finding: After analyzing surveys completed by 800,000 people in 22 sub-Saharan African countries, Lo and his colleagues found "no…
February 23, 2015
Last week, FDA warned healthcare providers that the complex design of a piece of endoscopy eqiupment may make it hard to fully disinfect -- which means that using it, even in accordance with the manufacturers' instructions, might allow dangerous bacteria to spread between patients. The warning…
February 18, 2015
Last week, US Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) reintroduced the Healthy Families Act, which would allow workers in businesses with 15 or more employees to earn one hour of job-protected sick time for each 30 hours worked, up to 56 hours (seven 8-hour days) per year…
February 11, 2015
Last week, Vox’s German Lopez highlighted a recent study that demonstrates how improving access to the most effective contraceptives can slash the rates of unintended pregnancies and abortions among teens. After the Colorado Family Planning Initiative (CFPI) started providing free IUDs and implants…