NIOSH eNews - June, 2013

NIOSH eNews - June, 2013

Having trouble viewing this email? View it in your browser. NIOSH eNews The Monthly Newsletter of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health

From the Director’s Desk

John Howard, M.D., Director, NIOSH

NIOSH Announces a New Center for Workers' Compensation Studies

Work-related injuries and illnesses pose immense burdens on workers, their families, their communities, and our economy. According to one study from 2011, costs associated with work related injuries and illnesses in the U.S. are estimated at $250 billion annually. At NIOSH it is our mission to identify, define, and apply ways to reduce these burdens and impacts. One way in which we do this is by conducting surveillance and research using rich sets of data. Workers’ compensation systems are one such source of data. Workers' compensation systems come into play after a worker suffers a job-related injury or illness. However, for NIOSH’s purposes, data about the nature, severity, and circumstances of a compensated injury or illness may provide valuable scientific evidence for better safeguarding other workers from similar pain and impairment, with attendant cost savings for employers.
NIOSH and its partners have worked closely to explore opportunities and define challenges for using workers’ compensation data to enhance occupational injury and illness surveillance. For example, in 2009 and 2012, in partnership with the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and other leaders, we co-sponsored two historic national workshops on these issues. As another example, we have developed several ongoing studies in partnership with the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation.

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NIOSH and Partners Relaunch the National Campaign to Prevent Falls

NIOSH, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and CPWR—The Center for Construction Research and Training announced on April 28 the relaunch of the construction fall prevention campaign, the national initiative to prevent falls at construction sites. Falls continue to be the leading cause of work-related injury and deaths in construction. Read more at www.cdc.gov/niosh/updates/upd-04-30-13.html.

NIOSH Recommends Exposure Limit for Carbon Nanotubes, Nanofibers

In May NIOSH released recommendations that occupational exposures to carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and carbon nanofibers (CNFs) be controlled to reduce a potential risk of certain work-related lung effects. CNTs and CNFs are man-made elongated particles made of sheets of pure carbon that are about a thousand times smaller than a human hair. Read more at www.cdc.gov/niosh/updates/upd-04-24-13.html.

Introducing the NIOSH Newsroom

The new NIOSH Newsroom provides a central Web hub for NIOSH press releases, recent news publications and articles pertaining to NIOSH, and recent NIOSH research publications and articles. Visit the Newsroom at www.cdc.gov/niosh/newsroom.

New NMAM Method for Toluene in Blood Available

A new method was published in the NIOSH Manual of Analytical Methods (NMAM): “Method 8007: Toluene in Blood.” The method is available at www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/2003-154/pdfs/8007.pdf.

NIOSH Partner Raises Awareness of Hearing Loss Issues

In May, the House Research Institute (www.houseresearchinstitute.org/) hosted an online campaign to raise public awareness about hearing loss and related auditory and balance issues. The House Research Institute is a nonprofit organization that advocates for safe sound guidelines based on those issued by NIOSH. To learn more about hearing loss prevention, go to www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/noise/.

NIOSH Research on Health Conditions, Industry Sectors Noted in NBC 'Today' Blog

The NBC News/Today "LifeInc" blog (http://lifeinc.today.com/_news/2013/05/16/18279218-bus-drivers-top-obese-workers-list-doctors-tip-lighter?lite) on May 16 noted research by NIOSH in which group medical claims from an insurer were analyzed to identify patterns of disease among worker populations. The study discussed the strengths and limitations of such claims as a way of identifying differences among industries that may be associated with workplace risk factors, and as potential leads for focusing workplace health protection and health promotion efforts. The NIOSH research, “Group medical claims as a source of information on worker health and potentially work-related diseases,” by Bushnell, Li, and Landon, was published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, December 2011 (J Occup Environ Med 2011;53(12):1430–1441).

New Web Page on Occupational Hearing Loss

The NIOSH Occupational Hearing Loss (OHL) Surveillance Project began in 2009 to establish a national repository for OHL data and to conduct surveillance and research on this common occupational illness. Learn more about how this project has progressed and grown on the new NIOSH topic page, at www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/ohl/