In California, a minimum wage worker has to work at least 98 hours in a week to afford a two-bedroom unit at fair market rental prices. In Texas, that worker would have to work between 81 and 97 hours in a week, and in North Carolina it’s upward of 80 hours per week.
Education
Study finds high support for public health interventions, few worries about encroaching ‘nanny state’
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.
The Southern Poverty Law Center and Alabama Appleseed interviewed 300 Alabama poultry workers, and find that many have musculoskeletal problems linked to fast-moving processing lines. That problem could get even worse if a proposed USDA poultry rule to increase maximum line speeds takes effect.
Infectious Diseases & Vaccines
10 years after SARS: Are healthcare systems ready for the next global public health emergency?
On March 12, 2003, the World Health Organization issued a global health alert for an atypical pneumonia that was soon dubbed SARS, severe acute respiratory syndrome. Ten years later, the International Health Regulations have been revised, but the US isn’t doing enough to maintain its surveillance and response capabilities.
Education
In tight fiscal times, National Public Health Week highlights the return on public health investments
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.”
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.
Environmental Health
New study lifts the lid on unhealthy kitchen conditions in migrant farmworker housing
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.
Environmental Health
A food safety inspector’s warning about chemicals and bacteria under USDA’s proposed poultry inspection “modernization”
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.”
Education
Study: Despite health risks tied to industrial food animal production, health departments have little involvement
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.
A few recent pieces worth a look