Recently in Health & Safety Category

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, USDL-10-1142, August 19, 2010

A preliminary total of 4,340 fatal work injuries were recorded in the United States in 2009, down from a final count of 5,214 fatal work injuries in 2008. The 2009 total represents the smallest annual preliminary total since the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) program was first conducted in 1992. Based on this preliminary count, the rate of fatal work injury for U.S. workers in 2009 was 3.3 per 100,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) workers, down from a final rate of 3.7 in 2008. Counts and rates are likely to increase with the release of final 2009 CFOI results in April 2011. Over the last 2 years, increases in the published counts based on information received after the publication of preliminary results have averaged 156 fatalities per year or about 3 percent of the revised totals.

Source: Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute, 19 August 2010

A new study by Pennsylvania State University researchers found that home health aides who had training are less likely to be injured on the job, and aides who felt they did not have good support from their supervisors were also more likely to suffer injuries.

The researchers also concluded that home health aides who had not experienced on-the-job injuries had a higher rate of job satisfaction and lower turnover "intentions."
See also:
Pennsylvania State University press release

Source: Ninica Howard; Darrin Adams, Home Health Care Services Quarterly, Volume 29, Issue 2 April 2010

From the abstract:
An examination of the Washington State workers' compensation claims for home health care workers was conducted. Some comparisons were made with nursing homes, acute care hospitals, and all other industries in the state. Between 1998 and 2007, the average claims rate for home health care workers was 1,375 claims/10,000 full-time equivalents (FTEs) compared to 862 claims/10,000 FTEs for all other industries. The proportion of home health care workers' injuries resulting from interactions with another person (89.6%) was comparable to those for nursing homes and hospitals. Although this industry has important economic and social value, risks are poorly characterized. Continued research is necessary.

Source: National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, Research Brief, July 2010

From the press release:
After reaching a 50-year low in 2009, the number of U.S. law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty surged nearly 43 percent during the first six months of 2010, according to preliminary data released today by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund (NLEOMF). If the mid-year trend continues, 2010 could end up being one of the deadliest years for U.S. law enforcement in two decades.
See also:
- 2009 report
- 2008 report
- 2007 report

Source: Tom O'Connor, Labor Notes, June 14, 2010

Month after month, year after year, workers die in trench collapses and falls from roofs. OSHA cites the employer, slaps it with a modest fine (a median penalty of only $3,675 per death in 2007), and points out that simple methods exist to prevent such tragic loss of life. Yet some employers continue to ignore the hazards and workers continue to lose their lives due to this criminal neglect.

Source: Amy Norton, Reuters Health, May 31, 2010

Nurses who work in hospital wards that are usually filled to capacity may have a higher risk of depression than their counterparts in less-crowded hospitals, Finnish researchers suggest.

Their new study found that hospital staffers who worked in the most crowded wards were twice as likely to take sick leave for depression as staff who worked in wards with "optimal" numbers of patients. The large majority of workers in the study -- 93 percent -- were nurses.

The findings, published online May 4 in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, don't prove that hospital overcrowding contributed to the nurses' depression. But they raise the possibility that chronic stress due to a heavy workload might impair some hospital workers' mental health, lead researcher Dr. Marianna Virtanen, of the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health in Helsinki, told Reuters Health in an e-mail.

Source: Mervyn S. Gotsman, and Stephen Adler, International Social Security and Workers Compensation Journal, Volume 1 Issue 1, 2009
(registration required)

Workers compensation systems compensate for work accidents and occupational diseases. Multi-causal diseases, such as heart disease, are not accidents and are not occupational diseases. They are an ordinary part of life, and heart attacks, for example, may occur without a precipitating event. However, coronary heart disease may be aggravated by unusual physical exertion or mental stress, resulting in a myocardial infarct (heart attack). If such strain or stress occurs at work, it is often compensated for by the workers compensation system. This paper asks whether the legal theories that are used to determine if a heart attack should be recognised as a work accident are consistent with modern medical knowledge on the subject. To answer this question, we must first examine the medical theory relating to the effect of an event at work on a latent illness, such as pre-existing heart disease, which must be present to produce a heart attack.

We describe events at work as 'triggers' of acute myocardial infarction. However, most of these triggers are not connected to the workplace. Triggers occasionally occur during an unusual, sudden and acute emotional event, such as stress or unusual physical effort at work, which, therefore, are work-related. This work-related event results in ruptured plaque in a diseased coronary artery. Intimal (the inner layer of the artery) disruption initiates a thromboembolic clot of the coronary artery involved. Thrombus forms, obstructs the artery, coronary fow is impeded, and the distal myocardium undergoes necrosis and infarcts (an acute myocardial infarction or heart attack). Thus, the sudden acute emotional event or physical effort at work has caused a heart attack, which should be compensated by the workers compensation system.

The medical and legal basis for recognising the relationship between the trigger and the heart attack are not precise. We suggest that an unusual acute stressor, or trigger, which occurs in the workplace, should be the basis for recognising the infarct as a work accident. In Israel, when it has been determined that a work-related trigger event contributed to the occurrence of a heart attack, the attack is recognised as a work accident.

This paper describes the importance of risk factors which can cause a heart attack, the experimental, pathological, and clinical evidence of plaque rupture as a cause of heart attacks, clinical examples, and legal theories for recognising a heart attack as a work accident, with particular reference to Israeli and American sources.

Source: Towers Watson, 2010

From the summary:
Every year around the globe, millions of workers are injured, thousands of lives are lost, and the impact of workplace safety is felt by businesses, employees and their families. Recent studies estimate that workplace injuries cost as much as 4% of the world's gross domestic product. It is the responsibility of all employers to take a strong, proactive stance to ensure their employees' safety. Towers Watson partners with the world's largest companies to improve their safety culture, gathering feedback through custom-tailored employee surveys designed to identify potential critical problem areas.

Our experts analyze the data, identify high-risk areas, and help clients develop concrete plans for improved occupational and process safety performance. Our work is focused on using employee insights to prevent costly and potentially deadly accidents before they occur. Employee culture is as much an element of a safe workplace as mandatory training sessions and regulatory policies. Our safety surveys aim to create a safer workplace by taking into account both the environment in which employees work and the culture that drives their daily work experience.

Source: Warren D. Franke, Marian L. Kohut, Daniel W. Russell, Hye Lim Yoo, Panteleimon Ekkekakis, Sandra P. Ramey, Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Vol 52 no. 5, May 2010
(subscription required)

From the abstract:
Objective: To determine whether job-related stress is associated with alterations in pro- and anti-atherogenic inflammatory mediators among law enforcement officers.

Conclusions: Law enforcement officers may be at an increased risk for cardiovascular disease due to a relatively greater pro-inflammatory vascular environment. However, this increased risk cannot be attributed to either chronic stress or the work-related stress measures assessed here.

Source: Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, Press release, May 6, 2010

The new regulatory agenda for the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) will result in new worker protections against at most a small handful of health hazards by the end of the presidential term, leaving untouched the absence of standards for thousands of chemicals and hundreds of existing standards that are much weaker than needed to protect workers, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). While OSHA is beginning some new initiatives, it is also pushing back the deadlines for completing some ongoing health standards.
See also:
- Look at the OSHA regulatory agenda
- Compare the yawning regulatory backlog in exposure limits
- Read David Michaels' explanation via web-chat
- See the PEER plan for Putting the "H" Back in OSHA