kkrisberg | January 29, 2016In the midst of another national debate over gun safety regulations, some argue that higher rates of gun ownership will protect people from dangerous strangers with deadly intentions. Physician and public health researcher Michael Siegel set out to study that argument. He ultimately found no relationship between gun ownership and stranger-related firearm homicides. But he did find that gun ownership levels translated into higher homicide risks for one group in particular — women.
“Our data refute the hypothesis that the more guns out there, the more of a deterrent there is to strangers…
kkrisberg | January 28, 2016Each year, the U.S. spends $26.2 billion on costs associated with preterm birth — that’s birth before 37 weeks of pregnancy. Beyond the costs, babies born too early experience immediate and long-term problems, from developmental disabilities to asthma to hearing loss. For years, scientists have been studying possible environmental contributors, with many finding an association between preterm birth and air pollution. Earlier this week, a new study brought even more depth and clarity to this connection.
Published in the journal Environmental Health, the study found that exposure to high levels…
cmonforton | January 27, 2016Whole digits, tips of fingers, and parts of a thumb. These are body parts of Tyson Foods' employees which were severed last year in 10 of the company's plants. The details are made possible by a new OSHA regulation that took effect on January 1, 2015. The regulation requires employers to report within 24 hours any work-related incident that results in an amputation or hospitalization.
After nearly a year on the books, I was curious to find out what just a single large employer had reported to federal OSHA. I picked Tyson Foods. It has more than more than 400 facilities in 30 US states and it…
cmonforton | January 26, 2016A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit upheld the Mine Safety and Health Administration’s (MSHA) regulation which is designed to better protect coal miners from developing black lung disease. The MSHA regulation was issued in April 2014, and shortly thereafter, the National Mining Association, Murray Energy, and others filed a lawsuit against it. The judges' opinion was published yesterday. (Thanks to Evan B. Smith at Devil in the Dust for alerting me to the decision.)
The industry asked the Court of Appeals to review a long list of legal arguments against the…
lborkowski | January 25, 2016A public-health nightmare is unfolding in Brazil, where the mosquito-borne virus Zika has been linked to nearly 4,000 cases of microcephaly – infants born with abnormally small brains and heads. Around 20% of adults with Zika don’t develop symptoms, which include fever, rash, and joint pain, so pregnant women may not even know they were infected. The list of places with active Zika transmisison currently includes 19 countries plus Puerto Rico in the Americas, as well as Samoa and Cape Verde.
While the link between Zika and microcephaly “hasn't been proved definitely,” NPR’s Jason Beaubien…
kkrisberg | January 22, 2016It’s been nearly two decades since the last publication of a nationwide survey on the distribution of blacklegged ticks — the primary transmitters of Lyme disease. That survey, released in 1998, reported the tick in 30 percent of U.S. counties. Today, a new study using similar surveillance methods has found the tick in more than 45 percent of counties.
“These kinds of changes tend to be gradual,” study co-author Rebecca Eisen, a research biologist in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Vector-Borne Diseases, told me. “But when you see the cumulative change over 20…
cmonforton | January 21, 2016Kevin Purpura, 39, suffered fatal traumatic injuries on Friday, January 15 while working at major renovation project in Wheeling, WV. His employer was Sandow Development.
The (Wheeling) Investigator reports:
Mr. Purpura “fell several stories while working inside the former Boury Warehouse."
Wheeling police said he was “inspecting metal studding surrounding an elevator shaft” when he fell.
The worksite is a “six-story, 120-year-old former warehouse…[which] is being converted into roughly 70 loft-style apartments by the Woda Group of Westerville, Ohio."
The “Boury Lofts” project is valued at $…
lborkowski | January 20, 2016A few of the recent pieces I've liked:
Maryn’s McKenna at Germination: Zika Virus: A New Threat and a New Kind of Pandemic
Kevin Drum in Mother Jones: My Right to Die: Assisted suicide, my family, and me
Jodi Jacobson at RH Reality Check: Four Facts Nancy Pelosi—and All ‘Pro-Choice’ Democrats—Should Know About Abortion
Sarah Brown in The Chronicle of Higher Education: Many Black Students Don’t Seek Help for Mental-Health Concerns, Survey Finds
David Epstein at ProPublica: The DIY Scientist, the Olympian, and the Mutated Gene
kkrisberg | January 19, 2016At Reveal, reporter Will Evans investigates discrimination within temporary staffing agencies, finding a pattern of racial, sexist and otherwise discriminatory hiring practices. He begins his story with Alabama-based Automation Personnel Services Inc., writing:
When its clients wanted to hire temp workers based on race, sex or age, Automation was happy to oblige, according to dozens of former employees.
Often, the practice was blatant. A manager at a Georgia manufacturing plant asked Christie Ragland not to send him “any black thugs,” she said. Ragland, a former Automation office manager…
kkrisberg | January 18, 2016Think about all the objects you use every day that are made with pieces of metal. Before that object got to you, a worker in the metal manufacturing industry used a machine to cut, saw, bend and assemble the metal pieces into the countless products that make our lives easier. But sometimes those machines break. And when they do, a simple and inexpensive procedure helps ensure both worker and machine can return safely to the job.
The procedure is known as lockout/tagout (LOTO) and it’s used to disable machinery and prevent the release of hazardous energy during servicing and repair. In other…
cmonforton | January 14, 2016There are many things I am thankful for about my job. One of them is being able to use the bathroom whenever (and as often) as I need. I thought about this situation when I’ve heard poultry workers mention the restrictions they face. I've also read about the problem for bus drivers and other public transit workers. The Washington Post, for example, has been following the issue involving drivers for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA). In a story from 2011, WashPost's Dana Hedgpeth wrote:
“Some operators say they have had to relieve themselves in a cup or bag at the back…
cmonforton | January 13, 2016Justin “J.D.” Jorgensen, 30 suffered fatal traumatic injuries on Wednesday, January 6 while working at an excavation project in Altoona, IA. His employer was JRS Excavating. WHOTV reports:
the project was in a residential area where workers were “digging water and sewer lines.”
the incident occurred about 8 am local time.
an Altoona police spokesperson said that Mr. Jorgensen was working inside a trench that was “10 to 12 feet deep” and the “dirt caved in.”
"family friends say he worked with his brother.”
Using OSHA’s on-line database, it does not appear that Iowa OSHA has conducted any…
kkrisberg | January 12, 2016Scientists are finding that night shift work comes with a range of particular health risks, from heart disease to diabetes to breast cancer. This month, another study joined the pack — this one on the risk of traffic crashes among those who head home from work at sunrise.
To conduct the study, researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Liberty Mutual Research Institute recruited and examined the experiences of 16 night shift workers as they participated in two two-hour daytime drives on a closed test track. The study participants undertook one driving test after working a night…
lborkowski | January 11, 2016USA TODAY’s Laura Ungar highlights an important measure in the omnibus spending bill Congress passed last month: It lifts the ban on the use of federal funds for needle-exchange programs. State and local needle-exchange programs still can’t use federal money to purchase needles, Ungar explains, but they can use it for staff, vans, outreach, and other expenses that typically cost far more than the syringes themselves.
Needle exchanges — also called syringe service programs (SSPs) — allow injection drug users to avoid sharing needles, a practice that can spread HIV, hepatitis C, and other…
kkrisberg | January 8, 2016These days, there’s a lot of attention on finding new and creative ways to turn around the nation’s opioid abuse and overdose problem. And it’s attention that’s very much needed because the problem is only getting worse.
On the first day of 2016, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published new data on prescription drug and opioid overdose deaths, reporting that more people died from drug overdoses in the U.S. in 2014 than during any other year on record. In fact, during 2014, there were about one-and-a-half more drug overdose deaths than deaths from traffic crashes, with most of…
cmonforton | January 7, 2016**Update below (1/30/2016)
A new paper by NIOSH researchers explores the use of lung transplants for individuals with work-related pneumoconiosis, including black lung disease. Using data from the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) for the period 1996-2014, Blackley and colleagues identified 47 lung-transplant cases in which the patient’s primary diagnosis was “coal workers’ pneumoconiosis” or pneumoconiosis unspecified.” Thirty four of the lung transplants (72%) were performed since 2008.
The medical costs for a bilateral lung transplant are substantial. In 2014, the average cost of…
lborkowski | January 7, 2016by Jonathan Heller
Most public health practitioners, and those who work on health impact assessment specifically, want to improve the health of vulnerable populations. Most efforts to do so are well-intentioned, yet they often don’t lead to significant change. What do we need to do differently? Below is an analysis we at Human Impact Partners put forward.
What Do We Mean By Inequity and What Are Its Causes?
First, we are intentional in our choice of the word equity. Health inequities, as Margaret Whitehead said, are differences in health status and mortality rates across population groups…
lborkowski | January 6, 2016Gerald Lyle Thompson’s work-related death could have been prevented. That’s how I see the findings of Minnesota OSHA (MN-OSHA) in the agency’s citations against his employer, DSM Excavating.
The 51 year-old was working in June 2015 at a construction site for Ryland Homes in Lakeville, Minnesota. The initial press reports indicated that Thompson and his brother were installing drain tile inside a 6 to 8 foot deep trench. Thompson was trapped at the bottom of the trench when the soil collapsed onto him. I wrote about the incident shortly after it occurred.
Inspectors with MN-OSHA conducted an…
kkrisberg | January 5, 2016At ProPublica, Michael Grabell expanded his “Insult to Injury” series on the dismantling of the nation’s workers’ compensation system with a disturbing look inside what he dubs the “workers’ comp industrial complex.” He begins his story in Las Vegas at the National Workers’ Compensation and Disability Conference & Expo. And even though Grabell’s previous investigations exposed just how much injured workers must struggle to receive fair compensation and medical care, he details a conference draped in luxury and expense. He writes:
A scantily clad acrobat dangles from the ceiling,…
lborkowski | January 4, 2016As 2015 drew to a close, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality announced some good news: Fewer US patients are dying from hospital-acquired conditions (HACs) like pressure ulcers and catheter-associated infections. Between 2011 and 2014, patients had 2.1 million fewer HACs than they would have if the 2010 baseline rate had continued. The drop translated to an estimated $20 billion in healthcare-cost savings and 87,000 fewer deaths.
Of the HACs averted over the four-year period, 40% were adverse drug events, 28% were pressure ulcers, and 16% were catheter-associated urinary tract…