Most current strategies to address the obesity problem in Americans focus on individuals changing their behavior. A new report illuminates why those strategies alone ignore the work environment as a contributor to obesity risk.
Public Health Science
Classic papers in Public Health: Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories for the Year 1947 by E.R.A. Merewether
A study and report by ERA Merewether in the 1940s alerted the medical community to the role of occupational asbestos exposure in lung disease.
Exploring reliable links between work and depression, which is a significant health and economic burden for individuals as well as society, is somewhat murky. But a new study published in the American Journal of Public Health used two analytic strategies to address such criticism.
Environmental Health
Where did the pardoned Thanksgiving turkey come from? Inspector records tell the filthy story
The turkey pardoned by the President was headed for a slaughterhouse with a history of food safety violations such as fecal contamination. Surprisingly, the USDA considers it a model for a modernized, streamlined inspection system.
Seven new worker safety regulations–both proposed and final rules—are stuck in the Obama White House. One proposed rule has been “under review” for 645 days.
In an address to the Royal Society of Medicine in 1965, Sir Austin Bradford Hill attempted to codify the criteria for determining disease causality. An occupational physician, Hill was primarily concerned with the relationships among sickness, injury, and the conditions of work.
Since 2000, overdose deaths due to prescription painkillers in Utah have increased by more than 400 percent. By 2006, more Utahans were losing their lives to prescription drug overdoses than to motor vehicle crashes. For Dr. Lynn Webster, a longtime pain management physician, the startling numbers were a call to action.
Celeste Monforton has been working for the past several months with the Houston worker center Fe y Justicia to respond to outrageous employer behavior that exposed construction workers to asbestos and raised questions about how the city selects contractors.
It’s Get Smart About Antibiotics Week, and new research finds that antibiotic prescription-filling rates vary substantially from state to state in the US.
OSHA
Worker loses scalp in unguarded machine, her first week on-the-job, employer contests OSHA violation
Monica Thayer, 25, nearly lost her life when she was pulled hair-first into a machine at JR Engineering. She lost her scalp and spent three weeks in the hospital. Her employer doesn’t think it is responsible and is challenging OSHA’s $7,000 penalty.