Environmental Health and Safety

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Employees with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) are more likely to have work absences, leading to high excess costs for employers, reports a study in the June Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, official publication of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM).

State-by-state unintentional injury death rates, boating safety tips and reports from Safety 2015 were among the top stories featured this week on ISHN.com.

Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health Dr. David Michaels and National Weather Service Deputy Director Laura Furgione have renewed their agencies’ joint effort to help workers avoid excessive heat – and the health dangers that come with it.

A new international standard for occupational health and safety got a big vote of confidence this week, taking it another step closer to publication. The latest draft of ISO 45001 got more than 75 percent approval by those involved in its development.

From the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI): Two new reports cast a harsh light on the roles played by chemical industry lobbies and senior European Commission officials in postponing the adoption of criteria to identify endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs).

The U.S. workforce – like the general population – is aging, and that trend brings with it consequences which affect workplace health and safety in a significant way.

We estimated that about 1 in 10 nonsmoking, working women of reproductive age in the United States are exposed to secondhand smoke at work. Women working in the accommodations and food services industry (women working in hotels, restaurants, or bars) were more than twice as likely as women employed in other industries to be exposed to secondhand smoke at work.

Posted with permission from Fairwarning.org: A new study has found that firefighters have a greater than average risk of developing some types of cancer, and that black and Latino firefighters face the highest risk of all.

Professional development is fundamental to the American Industrial Hygiene Conference and Expo being held this week in Salt Lake City, and a key component of that development is the ability to take a hard look in the mirror and assess your abilities and your skills gaps, according to Ashley Alewelt, an EHS manager for Caterpillar, the global manufacturer with more than 290 work sites and about 120,000 employees.

The evolution of the EHS field, which has been ongoing for 10-15 years since the effective conclusion of the activist OSHA era, is on display here at the American Industrial Hygiene Conference and Expo being held this week in Salt Lake City. EHS professionals in 2015 are no longer looked at as “the safety man” or the “industrial hygiene techie” if they position themselves properly, according to speakers.