Practical EHS Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
Employers have long been concerned about how smoking affects the workplace in terms of overall health and healthcare costs, the synergistic effects of smoking and workplace exposures, and fire safety. Recently, those concerns have been expanded to include vaping—which, as it turns out, is not really any safer for workers than cigarette smoking. And, just […]
In an effort reminiscent of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) very successful “Safety Stand-Down” program to prevent falls in construction, the agency has launched a program to protect workers in the oil and gas (O&G) industry. It’s called “Step Up for Safety,” and OSHA and its partners are encouraging employers to conduct “Step […]
In February, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) partnered with the National Service, Transmission, Exploration, and Production Safety (STEPS) Network and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to promote “Step Up for Safety” in the upstream oil and gas (O&G) industry. Employers are encouraged to take time out to conduct site […]
Who knew that when you are ordering your morning latte, you are possibly putting your barista and others at risk? Well, that’s a conclusion that can be drawn from a recent National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) report that claims workers at coffee processing facilities risk lung disease due to exposure to airborne […]
Hearing loss can have a debilitating impact on a worker’s life. Get the latest here on a new study from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) of conditions that affect workers exposed to occupational noise.
Industry can expect little relief from OSHA’s respirator fit testing requirements in light of a new National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) study that bolsters the Agency’s requirements and adds a recommendation that fit testing be performed for employees who lose a specific amount of weight. According to NIOSH, over 3 million workers […]
Whenever you put workers in an air-purifying respirator, it’s vital to know when they need to change their cartridges. Until passive visual end-of-service-life indicators become standard—something that has been a long time coming—employers must calculate, based on employee exposures and workplace factors, just how long a cartridge remains useful. There are a number of computer-based […]
Truckers and their employers will be interested in some new and possibly surprising safety data from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). Get the latest here.
Have you included e-cigarettes in your smoking policy? The federal government is discouraging vaping at work for a number of safety reasons. These reasons include a recent federal study that found a number of hazardous chemicals in the flavorings in e-cigarettes. The results of a BLR® human resources poll show that one-half of respondents (50%) […]
Each year in the United States, about 4,500 workers die from work-related injuries, and more than 50,000 die from work-related illnesses. More than 3 million suffer nonfatal occupational injuries or illnesses; 2.8 million are treated in the emergency department; and 140,000 are hospitalized. The price tag to employers reaches $250 billion each year. Although employers […]