Houston Fire Captain William Dowling spent seven weeks in intensive care recovering from injuries suffered in one of the deadliest fires in Houston history. Many more months of rehabilitation await him.
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.
Marketplaces for individual insurance policies open today. For thousands of people who are uninsured and don’t know much about the details of Obamacare, they now have a chance to see in concrete terms what it can mean for them.
The long-time residents of Iron County, Wisconsin who make up the Iron County Joint Impacts Mining Committee say the open-pit iron mine planned for the Penokee Hills of northern Wisconsin – a range that extends into Michigan where it’s known as the Gogebic Range – will bring much needed good jobs and economic development. Such […]
Last year, California Governor Jerry Brown vetoed a Domestic Worker Bill of Rights passed by the state’s legislature. Yesterday, he signed a Domestic Worker Bill of Rights that is watered down from its original version but takes the important step of extending overtime protections to nannies and other in-home employees.
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
A new Health Wonk Review compiled by Peggy Salvatore is now up at the Healthcare Talent Transformation blog.
The Labor Department took the first major step this month to protect the health of many U.S. workers who are exposed to respirable crystalline silica. Workers in the mining industry, however, are not addressed by the Department’s action.
Agrochemical bans have passed or are under consideration in some countries where young, previously healthy agricultural workers are developing chronic kidney disease at alarming rates; a study of cleanup workers who worked on Gulf of Mexico beaches and marshes following the 2010 BP oil spill finds “significantly altered blood profiles” associated with higher risk of some cancers; and OSHA cites a waste company and its temp labor provider following a workers’ death from heat stress.
This month, a new law took effect in Texas making it a felony to assault healthcare workers and other staff working in an emergency room. Another law prohibits tanning facilities from allowing customers under age 18 from using tanning beds and lamps.