Environmental Health and Safety

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The EPA is revising the 1992 Agricultural Worker Protection Standard to strengthen protections for the nation’s two million agricultural employees who work on farms, forests, nurseries and greenhouses. The agency says the revisions will afford farmworkers similar health protections that are already afforded to workers in other industries.

Five thousand twenty seven occupational hand injuries treated at a hand and microsurgery hospital between 1992 and 2005 were included in the study reported in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine.

The Campbell Institute – the National Safety Council center of excellence for environmental, health and safety management – released a white paper entitled Elevating EHS Leading Indicators: From defining to designing to provide employers with a road map for designing, implementing and evaluating leading indicators.

Building on more than a decade of cooperation and collaboration between the United States and China, OSHA Assistant Secretary Dr. David Michaels is in Beijing this week for a series of meetings with government officials, worker safety and health advocates, and industry representatives from both countries.

How are nurses in the workplace improving the quality of care and driving down costs? According to a new policy brief from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), momentum is building for an array of worksite-based care delivery and preventive health approaches that could produce such benefits and more, with nurses taking a leading role.

A recent Swiss survey of the working population shows that in 2013 over one million people suffered damage to their health due to their occupational activity. Eleven per cent of those questioned reported suffering from a health problem linked to their work (750 000 people) and 6 percent had been the victim of a workplace accident (316 000 people).

New York state’s recent implementation of regulations meant to protect workers in the state’s nail salons has prompted salon owners to organize, with many engaging in a one day lockout that deprived workers of that day’s wages.

In past ISHN web exclusives we have spent a significant amount of time discussing the Fatigue Reduction Management System (FRMS) – how to define it, how to assess fatigue in your workplace, and how to develop a FRMS framework -- so some of you may be feeling like we haven’t actually DONE anything yet.

The ergonomic design of workplaces and work routines will be a central issue at A+A 2015, International Trade Fair with Congress for Safety, Security and Health at Work. With over 1,800 exhibitors, A+A is the world’s leading market and communication platform for occupational health and safety and will be held from October 27 – 30, 2015 at the fairgrounds in Düsseldorf, Germany.

Institute for Safety and Health Management (ISHM), an accredited provider of certifications for EHS professionals, has elected three health and safety professionals with experience in emergency response, oil and gas, and OSHA compliance to its board of directors.