To better understand if occupational health and safety training and education programs have a beneficial effect on workers and businesses, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) in collaboration with the Institute for Work and Health (IWH), Ontario, Canada, conducted a review of some of the recent research in this area. Earlier this month NIOSH and IWH released "A Systematic Review of the Effectiveness of Training & Education for the Protection of Workers."
Home healthcare workers are frequently exposed to a variety of potentially serious or even life-threatening hazards, according to a new NIOSH Hazard Review: Occupational Hazards in Home Healthcare (Publication No. 2010-125). These dangers include overexertion; stress; guns and other weapons; illegal drugs; verbal abuse and other forms of violence in the home or community; bloodborne pathogens; needlesticks; latex sensitivity; temperature extremes; unhygienic conditions, including lack of water, unclean or hostile animals, and animal waste. Long commutes from worksite to worksite also expose the home healthcare worker to transportation- related risks
On a 2-1 vote, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board has approved urgent safety recommendations on gas purging safety at a public meeting in Raleigh, following extensive testimony and public comment. The draft recommendations, which were approved as presented by the staff without amendment, urged the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), American Gas Association (AGA), and the International Code Council (ICC) to strengthen the national fuel gas code provisions on purging. Board Chairman John Bresland and Member William Wark voted to approve; Board Member William Wright voted to disapprove.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has released action plans developed by 22 electric utility facilities with coal ash impoundments, describing the measures the facilities are taking to make their impoundments safer. The action plans are a response to EPA’s assessment reports on the structural integrity of these impoundments that the agency made public last September. Coal ash was brought prominently to national attention in 2008 when an impoundment holding disposed ash waste generated by the Tennessee Valley Authority broke open, creating a massive spill in Kingston, TN, that covered millions of cubic yards of land and river and is regarded as one of the worst environmental disasters of its kind in history. Shortly afterwards, EPA began overseeing the cleanup, as well as investigating the structural integrity of impoundments where ash waste is stored.
OSHA has cited O.S. Interior Systems Inc. for alleged workplace safety violations following a fatality at the company's worksite at 20555 State Highway 249 in Houston, says an agency press release. Proposed penalties total $112,000.
The U.S. Department of Labor's Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) has launched a new outreach and enforcement program designed to strengthen efforts to prevent mining fatalities, an agency press release states.
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