Risk Profile Improvement
What is Foodborne Illness?
Food safety is a vital part of staying well. Each year, about 76 million people in the United States become ill from eating contaminated foods. Thousands are hospitalized and around 5,000 die. The illnesses they get may come from eating foods contaminated with bacteria, viruses, or parasites. Illnesses you get from contaminated food are called foodborne illnesses, also known as food poisoning.
via NIHSeniorHealth: Eating Safely – Avoid Foodborne Illness.
Working with electricity can be dangerous. Engineers, electricians, and other professionals work with electricity directly, including working on overhead lines, cable harnesses, and circuit assemblies. Others, such as office workers and sales people, work with electricity indirectly and may also be exposed to electrical hazards.
Electricity has long been recognized as a serious workplace hazard. OSHA’s electrical standards are designed to protect employees exposed to dangers such as electric shock, electrocution, fires, and explosions. Electrical hazards are addressed in specific standards for the general industry, shipyard employment, and marine terminals.
It’s a beautiful day for a bike ride. You fill your water bottle, lace up your shoes and head out. The thought of a head injury doesn’t even cross your mind. Still, it’s a risk you’re taking if you don’t wear a bicycle helmet.
Why wear a bicycle helmet?
It’s simple. If you fall from your bike, the bicycle helmet takes the force of the blow — instead of your head. Although collisions with cars or other vehicles are likely to be the most serious, even a low-speed fall on a bicycle path can be dangerous. For kids and adults alike, wearing a bicycle helmet is the most effective way to prevent a life-threatening head injury.
Most youth find paid employment, either during the summer or year-round, before graduating from high school. Young workers, ages 14-24, are at risk of workplace injury because of their inexperience at work and their physical, cognitive, and emotional developmental characteristics. They often hesitate to ask questions and may fail to recognize workplace dangers. OSHA has made young workers a priority within the agency and is committed to identifying ways to improve young worker safety and health. OSHA’s Young Worker Initiative addresses this group’s safety and health through a multi-pronged outreach program.
via Young Workers.
Early heart disease often doesn’t have symptoms; that’s why regular checkups with a healthcare provider are important. Your doctor will check things like cholesterol, a fat that can add to plaques in your arteries, and your blood pressure. He might also do a blood test for CRP (c-reactive protein). You might also have an ECG or EKG, an electrocardiogram. This is a test that looks at electrical activity in your heart.
Everyone should know the outward warning signs of heart disease. Chest pain should be taken seriously. Pain in the chest, shoulders, arms, neck, jaw, or back can be a symptom of heart disease. If you have heart disease, you might feel chest pain during physical activity. But, it can have other causes too, so it is important to check with your doctor to learn what is triggering yours.
Heart Attack? Call 9-1-1 Act in time: Learn the warning signs of a heart attack. If you or someone you know might be having a heart attack, call 9-1-1 right away. You need to take an ambulance to the hospital as soon as possible. Do not try to drive yourself, and do not have someone else drive you unless there is no ambulance service where you live. These warning signs can include crushing chest pain and/or discomfort or pain elsewhere in the upper body, nausea, a cold sweat, fainting or lightheadedness, or shortness of breath.
Other signs of heart disease include a weak or numb feeling on one side of the face or body, dizziness, headache, shortness of breath, tiredness, and swelling in the ankles, feet, legs, stomach, and neck. Some people who have a problem with their heartbeat may report a fluttering in their chest or the feeling that their heart is skipping a beat or beating too hard.
Talk to your doctor if you have any of these signs. Your healthcare provider may want you to see someone who specializes in heart disease. This doctor is called a cardiologist.
Staying healthy at work makes it easier to do your job. For many people, staying healthy at work begins with proper office space ergonomics — such as correct chair height, proper equipment spacing and good posture.
For others, staying healthy at work means preventing back pain and injury. The best bet? Exercise regularly — even if your job keeps you moving. Better yet, consider ways to include physical activity and gentle stretching in your workday. Strong and flexible muscles help keep your back in shape.
If your job involves travel, staying healthy at work might mean fitting in a workout while you’re away from home.
Staying healthy at work also extends to your mental health and family life. Consider strategies to boost job satisfaction, improve work-life balance and prevent job burnout.
Skateboarding can be a fun way for children and adolescents to get exercise. However, an estimated 111,000 kids younger than 18 are treated in U.S. hospital emergency departments for skateboard-related injuries each year. Many of these injuries can be prevented.
Skateboarding Injury Facts: Of those children treated in U.S. emergency departments because of their skateboard-related injuries:
Who is Most at Risk?
Skateboarding Safety Tips
via Injury Research and Policy Skateboarding Research :: Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus, Ohio.
Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) serve organizations and their employees in multiple ways, ranging from consultation at the strategic level about issues with organization-wide implications to individual assistance to employees and family members experiencing personal difficulties. As workplace programs, the structure and operation of each EAP varies with the structure, functioning, and needs of the organization(s) it serves.
In general, an EAP is a set of professional services specifically designed to improve and/or maintain the productivity and healthy functioning of the workplace and to address a work organization’s particular business needs through the application of specialized knowledge and expertise about human behavior and mental health.
via EA FAQs – Employee Assistance Professionals Association, Inc..
Don’t use scented soaps, perfumes or hair sprays on your child.via Summer Safety Tips.
“Confined Space” refers to a space which by design has limited openings for entry and exit, unfavorable natural ventilation which could contain or produce dangerous air contaminants, and which is not intended for continuous employee occupancy. Confined spaces include but are not limited to storage tanks, compartments of ships, process vessels, pits, silos, vats, degreasers, reaction vessels, boilers, ventilation and exhaust ducts, sewers, tunnels, underground utility vaults, and pipelines. According to data collected by the U.S. Department of Labor (USDOL), Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) program, fatal injuries in confined spaces fluctuated from a low of 81 in 1998 to a high of 100 in 2000 during the five-year period, averaging 92 fatalities per year.
via CDC – Confined Spaces – NIOSH Workplace Safety and Health Topic.