Articles Tagged with ''health and wellness''

Do pigeons and other pest birds really represent a significant health threat for people? The simple answer is yes, and no. Pigeons have, in fact, been positively identified with a long list of zoonotic (transmissible to man) diseases. This includes illnesses associated with bacteria, viruses, endo and ectoparasites, fungi and protozoa. Many of these diseases can lead to debilitating and life threatening ailments.

For many, feasting with friends and family is the best part of the holiday season. Whether you are hosting or attending celebrations, food is often prepared in one location and taken to another. Use the following tips to curtail the diverse opportunities which allow bacterial growth and contamination. Stop Foodborne Illness, a national nonprofit, public health organization dedicated to preventing illness and death from foodborne pathogens wants to ensure that safe food handling becomes a normal part of everyone’s holiday plans. Many standard food safety practices such as hand washing, and avoiding cross contamination apply no matter what you’re celebrating. These tips are offered with the goal of making your festivities memorable. (In a good way!)

Starting Nov. 26, the major U.S. tobacco companies must run court-ordered newspaper and television advertisements that tell the American public the truth about the deadly consequences of smoking and secondhand smoke, as well as the companies’ intentional design of cigarettes to make them more addictive. The ads are the culmination of a long-running lawsuit the U.S. Department of Justice filed against the tobacco companies in 1999.

An estimated one in five working U.S. adults use some type of tobacco product according to new research from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Of the estimated 32.7 million working adults who used tobacco, an estimated 6.9 million use two or more tobacco products “every day” or “somedays.”

Construction workers are much less likely to get vaccinated for the flu than people in management, healthcare and social assistance. That finding emerged from a study published in the American Journal of Infection Control. The purpose of the study was to compare flu vaccination coverage rates by industry, occupation and state. Each year, flu-like illnesses cause sickness, missed workdays, and related costs in the U.S. workforce.

It’s flu season. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) conducts research on protecting health care providers and other workers from infectious diseases including influenza. A significant portion of our research deals with understanding how the influenza virus is transmitted. Influenza is known to be transmitted through respiratory secretions containing the virus.