The death rate among individuals crossing illegally the U.S.-Mexico border reached an all-time high in 2012. Focusing on labor law enforcement, rather than border enforcement, could be a solution to the death toll.
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.
In a little less than a month, public health workers in Macomb County, Mich., will set up at the local Babies”R”Us store to offer parents a free child car seat check. The Macomb County Health Department has been organizing such car seat checks for years, knowing that proper child vehicle restraints can save lives and prevent injury. The event also fits in perfectly with this year’s National Public Health Week theme of “Public Health ROI: Save Lives, Save Money.”
Municipalities should see a red flag when one of its major construction contractors is found willfully and repeatedly violating worker safety standards.
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.
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.
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.
After nearly three decades as a USDA food safety inspector, Stan Painter tells me he now feels like “window dressing standing at the end of the line as product whizzes by.”
A couple years ago, two public health researchers attended a hearing about the possible expansion of an industrial food animal production facility. During the hearing, a community member stood up to say that if the expansion posed any hazards, the health department would surely be there to protect the people. The two researchers knew that probably wasn’t the case.
My favorite part of President Obama’s 2013 inaugural address.