Texas may boast a booming construction sector, but a deeper look reveals an industry filled with wage theft, payroll fraud, frighteningly lax safety standards, and preventable injury and death. In reality, worker advocates say such conditions are far from the exception — instead, they’ve become the norm.
Infectious Diseases & Vaccines
Report: Americans dying earlier, getting sicker than those in other high-income nations
When it comes to good health, America is far from top dog. A new report finds that although the nation has experienced improvements in life expectancy and survival in the last century, we’re falling behind our counterparts in other high-income countries.
In Austin, Texas, a growing movement to transform working conditions for construction workers is underway and the new Construction Career Center is playing a pivotal role.
Dr. Paul Demers says he frequently finds himself having to make the case for why studying workplace exposures to carcinogens is important. Oftentimes, he says, people believe such occupational dangers are a thing of the past. But a new four-year study he’s leading could change all that.
Amidst discussions of new gun control measures, a study finds that adding new settings where people can bring concealed weapons could increase the risk of some crimes.
Public Health Practice
New study explores the healthy immigrant effect, casting doubt on the current school of thought
It’s often noted that immigrants to the United States experience a decline in health after adopting American lifestyle habits. However, a recent study has found that new immigrants might not be arriving in such good health after all.
Four links to pieces that portray and summarize gun violence in this country.
Injury Control & Violence
Construction workers in central Texas successfully tie living wages to big business tax breaks
Workers in Travis County, Texas, are celebrating what advocates are calling a landmark victory, after local leaders voted to ensure that economic incentive deals benefit both big business and workers.
Injury Control & Violence
First-of-its-kind survey compiles the experience of domestic workers, highlights the grim nature of an unregulated industry
The collective experience of domestic workers — house cleaners, nannies and caregivers — often remains hidden from view. But a new survey has pulled back the curtain on the conditions and experiences domestic workers face, documenting issues such as wage exploitation, preventable on-the-job injuries and the little — if any — power domestic workers have in improving their work environments.
“If you really look at how pain affects people and what it means to have pain…you start to view it more as a social phenomenon.” These are words from Dr. Daniel Carr, who says the time for a population-based approach doesn’t begin with misuse and abuse of prescription painkillers; it begins, in fact, with how we interpret the contributors to pain in the first place.