Strategies to reduce the deathly toll of prescription drug abuse are reaping positive outcomes, though not every state is taking full advantage, according to a new report from Trust for America’s Health.
While OSHA has never been the most robustly funded federal agency, its efforts and regulatory authority have helped prevent countless deaths, injuries and illnesses on the job. However, recent budget cuts and future budget cut proposals threaten those gains, and it’s no stretch to say that worker health and safety hang in the balance.
The federal government shutdown has put a halt on most workplace safety inspections. It’s another important public health program adversely affected by the spending showdown.
Public Health Practice
Worth reading: Lessons from getting shot, the mental strain of poverty, and dengue in Florida
A few recent pieces worth a look
Public Health Practice
Worth reading: 12 years after 9/11, poverty and the brain, and 14 lifesaving ideas
A few recent pieces worth a look
Public Health Practice
Hazards behind a chicken dinner: US poultry workers ask USDA and OSHA to protect their safety
Nearly 50 billion pounds of chicken (about eight billion chickens’ worth, or 37 billion pounds of poultry products) were processed in the United States in 2012 by about half a million workers, many of whom handle more than 100 birds per minute. This labor involves standing in chilled processing plant facilities, cutting, gutting, scalding, defeathering […]
For older workers, the most dangerous occupational move may be getting behind the wheel.
In Los Angeles in 1924, after a series of mysterious deaths, Yersinia pestis, or bubonic plague, was swiftly identified as the culprit. Immediate quarantine of exposed people in selected areas helped to make the outbreak less than a devastating epidemic. But some public officials and newspaper reporters, in a desperate attempt to explain the origins […]
On July 5, James Baldasarre, a 45-year old a Medford, Massachusetts US Postal Service employee who had worked for USPS for 24 years, died from excessive heat. According to news reports, shortly before collapsing in the 95-degree heat, Baldasarre texted his wife to say, “I’m going to die out here today. It’s so hot.” On […]
Helping others isn’t only the right thing to do, it’s the healthy thing to do.