Occupational Health and Safety

The Minneapolis Bridge Collapse was traumatic to not only those who lived through it or the people with involved loved ones; but to all of us who watched this tragedy unfold. Although the mass casualties are not as high as those in 9/11; the significance of this event is no less awful.

Mass casualties are never good, and one never thinks of being involved as a casualty. When they do occur, and occur they will, it gives us an opportunity to review how one’s health is managed, or should be managed. It may save your life.

During 2005, motor-vehicle crashes resulted in 33,041 deaths to vehicle occupants (excluding motorcyclists), and nearly 3 million occupants were treated for injuries in emergency departments in the United States (1,2). Safety belts, child safety seats, and booster seats can prevent serious injury and death during a crash.

Despite the demonstrated effectiveness of occupant restraints in motor vehicles, millions of adults and children travel unrestrained. Certain age groups are less likely to be restrained than others. For example, in the United States, children aged 4--7 years are less likely than younger children to be restrained. In 2006, 22% of children in this age group were unrestrained, compared with 11% of children aged 1--3 years and 2% of infants (3). Furthermore, restraint use among children aged 4--7 years decreased from 83% in 2002 to 78% in 2006 (3,4). CDC recommends booster seats for children who have outgrown their child safety seats but are less than 4 feet, 9 inches tall (5). Children whose drivers are wearing a safety belt are more likely to be restrained than those whose drivers are not wearing a safety belt (3). Therefore, increasing adult use of safety belts through enforcement of safety belt laws might also increase the numbers of children who are restrained (6).

Consumers and workers should be aware that nail gun injuries are common and can be severe. Current users and new tool purchasers should make sure that their nail gun has the safer sequential-trip trigger mechanism. Since 1991, consumer nail-gun injuries treated in US emergency departments (ED) have increased more than 200 percent, as these tools have become increasingly accessible to consumers. While training in safe work practices is important, consumers, employers, and workers who use nail-guns on the job should be aware that engineering interventions are available that can reduce the risk of such injuries, principally a safety feature called a sequential-trip trigger.

Although substantial improvements have been made to prevent deaths from work-related injuries, preventable deaths continue to occur at a rate of almost 16 deaths per day with transportation incidents as the leading cause. To substantially reduce the number of workplace deaths, implementation and dissemination of prevention strategies must continue to target high-risk worker populations particularly those involved in transportation activities. Highway and transportation incidents are the leading cause of work-related deaths, followed by falls and being struck by an object, and such fatal injuries have increased over the past decade. From 1992 to 2005, the numbers of fatal occupational injuries resulting from highway incidents, falls, and being struck by an object have increased and the number of homicides has decreased.

According to an October, 2006 report by Health Care Without Harm, the indoor hospital environment may be making people sick. The report reveals that substances commonly found in hospitals can trigger an asthma attack or cause the disease.

Popcorn has got to be one of America's favorite snack foods. But it is now at the center of a national health controversy.

One of the chemicals used to make the artificial butter flavoring so commonly used in packaged popcorn has been linked to a respiratory disease called "popcorn lung" in hundreds of people.

University of Cincinnati researchers have found that firefighters have a much higher risk of developing certain cancers than people in other professions, reports the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (the investigatory workplace agency of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) tracked Bronchiolitis obliterans, a disease which destroys the lungs, to popcorn plants. According to an article in the Baltimore Sun, NIOSH decided that "... the butter flavorings, and most likely diacetyl, caused the disease. NIOSH documented that diacetyl gave off toxic vapors when it was heated and, in some of the plants, found the highest incidence of disease among workers in the quality-control areas, where the packaged corn, ready for market, was popped in microwaves and sampled."

Although we are used to thinking of pneumonia as a disease, it is not a single disease. It can have over 30 different causes according to the American Lung Association which lists five of the main causes of pneumonia:

A conference sponsored by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations and the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) on Avian Influenza and Wild Birds (funded by the governments of France, The Netherlands, Norway and Switzerland) has concluded that there is a low, but real, risk for people who have close and intense contact with sick poultry.