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Newsbrief Current Issue from The National Clearinghouse for Worker Safety and Health Training

Weekly E-Newsbrief, March 22, 2024

Weekly E-Newsbrief

March 22, 2024

The E-Newsbrief of the National Clearinghouse is a free weekly newsletter focusing on new developments in the world of worker health and safety. Each issue provides summaries of the latest worker health and safety news from newspapers, magazines, journals, government reports, and the Web, along with links to the original documents. Also featured each week are updates from government agencies that handle hazmat and worker safety issues such as DOE, EPA, OSHA and others.

Subscribing to the National Clearinghouse Newsbrief is the best way to stay on top of the worker health and safety news.

Top StoriesBack to Top

NSC Calls White House Initiative a ‘Meaningful Step’ Toward Ending Opioid Epidemic

On the job, drug overdose deaths have increased 619% since 2011, according to Injury Facts – a website maintained by the National Safety Council (NSC). The White House challenge to Save Lives from Overdose is a call to action for organizations and businesses nationwide. The challenge encourages all employers to train workers on naloxone use, keep it in first aid kits, and distribute it to employees and customers. NSC, which launched its Respond Ready Workplace program to raise awareness of the need for naloxone in workplaces and ensure people are trained to use it, applauds the White House challenge and initiative.

NSC Overdose Deaths

Safety + Health Magazine

The White House

Native Hawaiians Aim to Bring Cultural Sensitivity to Maui Wildfire Cleanup

Mehana Hind stands in the center of a hotel conference room in Lahaina, Hawaii, with a wide, welcoming grin. She greets the members of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, newly arrived from the mainland to work on the cleanup of the deadly wildfires that swept Maui in 2023. The fires destroyed Lahaina, the one-time capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii. Hind is a cultural liaison with the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement. She's there to equip federal cleanup teams to recognize and engage with Lahaina's unique cultural heritage.

NPR [Author: Debbie Elliott & Marisa Peñaloza]

Health Workers Fear its Profits Before Protection as CDC Revisits Airborne Transmission

Many worry that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is repeating past mistakes as it develops a crucial set of guidelines that hospitals, nursing homes, prisons, and other health care facilities will apply to control the spread of infectious diseases. The guidelines update those established nearly two decades ago. They will be used to establish protocols and procedures for years to come.

NCB News [Author: Amy Maxmen]

Covid and Medicare Payments Spark Remote Patient Monitoring Boom

Billy Abbott, a retired Army medic, wakes at 6 every morning, steps on the bathroom scale, and uses a cuff to take his blood pressure. The devices send those measurements electronically to his doctor in Gulf Shores, Alabama, and a health technology company based in New York, to help him control his high blood pressure. Nurses with the company, Cadence, remotely monitor his readings along with the vital signs of about 17,000 other patients around the nation. They call patients regularly and follow up if anything appears awry. If needed, they can change a patient’s medication or dosage without first alerting their doctor.

KFF Health News [Authors: Phil Galewitz & Holly K. Hacker]

SAMHSA’s 20th Prevention Day: Leading with Science, Improving Lives

Built on the momentum of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) 20th Prevention Day, SAMHSA is looking ahead to National Prevention Week (May 12-18). About 4,300 prevention professionals, researchers, and advocates from across the country attended SAMHSA’s 20th Prevention Day held outside of Washington, D.C. on Jan. 29, 2024. This was the largest Prevention Day gathering to date, offering 83 sessions with about 200 speakers ― leading with science, advancing the prevention of substance use and misuse, and enhancing lives. The prevention field’s synergy and positive energy were palpable.

SAMHSA

How Your In-Network Health Coverage Can Vanish Before You Know It

One of the most unfair aspects of medical insurance, in a system that often seems designed for frustration, is this: Patients can change insurance only during end-of-year enrollment periods or at the time of “qualifying life events,” such as a divorce or job change. But insurers’ contracts with doctors, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies (or their arbiters, so-called pharmacy benefit managers) can change abruptly at any time.

KFF Health News [Author: Elisabeth Rosenthal]

Calendar FeaturesBack to Top

WTP Spring Grantee Meeting and Workshop Registration Page Is Now Live!

The registration page for the Worker Training Program (WTP) Grantee Meeting and Workshop, titled “Closing the Gaps: Designing Training with Occupational Health Disparities in Mind,” is now available. The grantee meeting will be held on April 30, 2024, from 9 a.m. - 1 p.m. EDT. The workshop will take place on May 1, 2024, from 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. EDT, and May 2, 2024, from 9 a.m. - 1 p.m. EDT. Registration will close on Friday, April 12, 2024, at 11:59 p.m. EDT.

Grantee Meeting and Workshop Registration

USGBC-LA Extreme Heat for Construction Professionals Training

The U.S. Green Building Council Los Angeles (USBGC-LA) will host a training to help those who work directly with residents, homeowners, property managers, and building owners to understand climate resilient options to make buildings more resilient to the increasing costly effects of climate change. This will help California achieve a carbon-neutral economy and workers will be at the center of this effort. The training will be hosted online April 18 from 12:00 noon to 3:00 p.m. EDT.

Event Registration

Launch of the Toolkit for Health Professionals on Communicating About Climate Change and Health

Climate change presents one of the most significant global health challenges, already negatively affecting communities worldwide. Communicating the health risks of climate change and the health benefits of climate solutions is both necessary and helpful. To support this, the World Health Organization in collaboration with partners is launching a new toolkit designed to equip health care professionals with the knowledge and confidence to effectively communicate about climate change and health. The event will be hosted online, March 22, 8:30 a.m. – 9:45 a.m. EDT.

Event Information

Event Registration

Climate Conversations: Women in Climate Science Webinar

Despite decades of activism and progress in reducing gender disparities in the sciences, there are still significant institutional biases keeping women out of key research, leadership, and policy roles. Gender equity in climate science is critical because the contributions of women often ensure that mitigation and adaptation solutions are more inclusive and effective. During Women’s History Month, the National Academies for Science, Engineering, and Medicine is showcasing the role of women in climate science and climate leadership. The webinar will be hosted March 22, 2024, from 12:30 p.m. – 1:45 p.m. EDT.

Event Registration

Celebrating Women Workers Who Advocate for Change

In honor of Women’s History Month, Acting Secretary Julie Su and Women’s Bureau Director Wendy Chun-Hoon will lead a fireside chat with women workers who are advocating for change in their industries. The fireside chat will take place April 1, 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. EDT, at the Department of Labor Frances Perkins Building. “Celebrating Women Workers who Advocate for Change,” co-hosted by the Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau and the Chief Diversity and Equity Office, will shine a spotlight on the remarkable achievements of women workers, highlighting the ways that they have advanced greater equity for all.

Event Registration

On The Web This WeekBack to Top

Severe Injuries in the Food Processing Industry

This alert is directed to employers, contractors, staffing agencies, and employees in the food processing industry to increase awareness and help ensure the industry is taking action to reduce the alarming number of serious preventable injuries, including deaths, in poultry, meat and other food processing establishments.

Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) Hazard Alert

A New Orleans Neighborhood Confronts the Racist Legacy of a Toxic Stretch of Highway

Aside from a few discarded hypodermic needles on the ground, the Hunter’s Field Playground in New Orleans looks almost untouched. It’s been open more than nine years, but the brightly painted red and yellow slides and monkey bars are still sleek and shiny, and the padded rubber tiles feel springy underfoot. For people who live nearby, it’s no mystery why the equipment is in relatively pristine shape: Children don’t come here to play.

KFF Health News [Author: Drew Hawkins]

Women In Construction Still Lack Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) That Fits, Survey Shows

A recent survey of women in the construction industry found that gender-appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) and maternity-friendly safety equipment is lacking on jobsites. Researchers at Lumber, a construction workforce management organization, surveyed 100 female construction company owners, executives, and decision-makers about worksite challenges. Sixty-seven percent of respondents said PPE such as safety harnesses and hard hats weren’t readily available in women’s sizes, while 85% couldn’t access maternity-friendly safety equipment.

Safety + Health Magazine

Federal Agency UpdateBack to Top

Biden-Harris Administration Finalizes Ban on Ongoing Uses of Asbestos to Protect People from Cancer

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a final rule to prohibit ongoing uses of chrysotile asbestos, the only known form of asbestos currently used in or imported to the United States. The ban on ongoing uses of asbestos is the first rule to be finalized under the 2016 amendments to the nation’s chemical safety law, the Toxic Substances Control Act, which received near-unanimous support in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate. The action marks a major milestone for chemical safety after more than three decades of inadequate protections and serious delays during the previous administration to implement the 2016 amendments.

EPA News Release

Biden-Harris Administration Launches Clean Energy Connector to Bring Nearly $15 Million in Annual Energy Savings to Up to 40,000 Low-Income Households

The Biden-Harris Administration, through a partnership between the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), launched the pilot of the Clean Energy Connector, a tool that connects families to solar energy through HHS’s Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). The first-of-its-kind software can now be used by local LIHEAP program administrators in Illinois, Washington, D.C., and New Mexico to connect community solar subscriptions to as many as 40,000 low-income households.

DOE News Release

U.S. Department of Labor Recovers Nearly $200K for Workers Underpaid by Massachusetts Subcontractor at Rhode Island Worksite

The U.S. Department of Labor has recovered $199,433 in back wages for 37 workers after finding a Lawrence construction subcontractor failed to pay prevailing wages and fringe benefits to employees working on a federally funded project at a Department of Veterans Affairs medical center in Providence, RI. The department’s Wage and Hour Division investigation found Stone Art Inc. failed to pay carpenters, tapers, and laborers installing drywall the required prevailing wage rate and fringe benefits required under the Davis-Bacon Act.

U.S. Department of Labor News Release

CDC’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health’s Impact Wellbeing™ Campaign Releases Hospital-Tested Guide to Improve Healthcare Worker Burnout

As part of the first federal campaign to address healthcare worker burnout, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health released an evidence-informed and actionable guide for the nation’s hospital leaders to improve healthcare worker wellbeing – Impact Wellbeing™ Guide: Taking Action to Improve Healthcare Worker Wellbeing. This guide provides a step-by-step process for hospitals to start making organizational-level changes that will impact and improve the mental health of their employees.

Impact Wellbeing Guide

CDC News Release

Awardee Highlights/Online LearningBack to Top

Safety Stand Down 2024

Taking place June 16-22, 2024, Safety Stand Down highlight’s critical safety, health, and survival issues for fire and emergency services personnel. Departments are asked to suspend all non-emergency activities during the week to focus their attention on safety and health education efforts. A week is provided to ensure that all duty shifts can participate. Dozens of free resources, including articles, textbooks, on-demand webinars, toolkits, and online courses, are available.

Resources

Safety + Health Magazine

Job OpeningsBack to Top

UAW Health and Safey Department Seeking Certified Industrial Hygienist

The United Auto Workers (UAW) are seeking a certified industrial hygienist to join their health and safety department. The role of the certified industrial hygienist is to support the needs of the UAW membership by working closely with leadership from national departments (Ford, General Motors, Stellantis, and all other sectors of the UAW), as well as health and safety managers from the companies of the members we represent. This position is full-time and based in-person in Detroit, MI. When clicking on the link, scroll down to see job posting.

Job Posting

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Seeking Construction Control Representative

The U.S. Army Corps is seeking a Construction Control Representative. The incumbent is responsible for implementing the government's Quality Assurance Program and monitoring the contractor's quality control and inspection program for assigned construction projects. The incumbent will also prepare Quality Assurance Reports for assigned projects.

Job Posting

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) seeking National Disaster Recovery Support Specialists

FEMA is seeking local hires for National Disaster Recovery Support Specialists. There is an immediate need to employ temporary local hires to assist with disaster response and recovery efforts in Detroit and Lansing, MI. Local hire employees are typically local residents who aid in the recovery of their community and help their fellow citizens in the recovery process. A local hire's term of employment is 120 days. Local hire appointments may be extended, in 120-day increments, based on the needs of the disaster.

Job Posting

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