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The E-Newsbrief of the National Clearinghouse for Worker Safety and Health Training is a free weekly newsletter focusing on new developments in the world of worker health and safety.
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The NIEHS Worker Training Program (WTP) has just published the Alaska State Profile, a summary of the work that WTP award recipients have done in the state from 2020 to 2024. The new State Profile covers environmental, hazardous waste, and disaster preparedness courses that organizations funded by WTP delivered to Native Alaskans and remote Alaskan communities. Each year, award recipients provide more than 26,000 contact hours of health and safety training to almost 2,000 workers across the state.
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The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Disaster Research Response (DR2) Program recently released a report for its 10th anniversary. The report highlights key accomplishments of the program, workshops, milestones, resources developed, key research, and partnerships. It details the past of the program and looks forward to the future of continued collaboration for research and response to disasters.
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The measles outbreak in Texas and New Mexico is now close to 300 reported cases, surpassing the total number of cases in all the U.S. in 2024. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the nationwide risk remains low and that vaccination is the key to prevention. Doctors say it's a good time to remember how dangerous and long-lasting the health consequences of measles can be. Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE) is a degenerative neurological condition that typically develops seven to 10 years after a measles infection, and it is almost always fatal. Vaccination prevents not just SSPE, but also other serious complications that measles can cause — including pneumonia and severe brain swelling.
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Three out of five workers with a chronic physical health condition are keeping that information from their employer, according to the results of a new survey. Researchers surveyed more than 1,000 employed adults, including nearly 600 with a chronic physical health condition such as heart disease, high blood pressure, or diabetes. Of the participants with a chronic health condition, 60% said they haven’t formally disclosed their condition to their employer and 76% manage their conditions during work hours. Fewer than half of the respondents said their employer will allow them to take breaks or use paid leave when needed.
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Greater exposure to heat may hasten biological aging in older adults, results from a cohort study published in Scientific Advances indicated. In some cases, biological aging increased by up to nearly 3 years, researchers reported. In the analysis, researchers used multiple biological clocks to measure the methylation patterns and determine biological aging of 3,686 American adults aged 56 years or older at several time points. The researchers then compared these changes in aging with participants’ location’s heat index history and number of heat days. They found that more heat days over 7-day and 30-to-60-day periods corresponded with greater biological age acceleration.
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The workshop will examine education and workforce development (EWD) needs and programs to support manufacturing in the United States. Speakers from federal agencies will describe ongoing EWD efforts within their agencies and discuss advice on the future shape and direction needed to meet the critical manufacturing needs for the energy sector today and looking to 2030 and 2035. The workshop will take place April 8, 2025, 11am-4:40 p.m. ET.
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As Texas' largest measles outbreak in three decades sickens an increasing number of Texans in the South Plains region, the Lynn County Hospital District is operating without specialized isolation rooms to treat patients. The coronavirus pandemic underscored the need for robust public health infrastructure, and it brought to light a remarkable urban-rural divide in access to basic health services. Yet as a disease that had been declared eliminated from the U.S. in 2000 makes a resurgence, rural West Texas communities and state officials are scrambling to respond. Aging infrastructure, a dearth of primary care providers, and long distances between testing sites and laboratories plague much of rural Texas, where the measles outbreak has concentrated.
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A new study has found that rural county health officials can use information from funeral homes and obituaries to identify community health emergencies. The study, published in the Journal of Appalachian Health, looked at public funeral and obituary listings to identify spikes in excess mortality. Researchers found that there were twice as many excess deaths in the county compared to the official number of deaths attributed to Covid. Using the publicly available data can reveal excess deaths much faster than official statistics, the researchers said. Although obituaries and funeral home notices don’t give specific causes of death in some cases, health officials can still use them to note unexpected increases.
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Scientists who examined the impact of an H5N1 avian flu outbreak in an Ohio dairy herd with about 3,900 cows found a milk production drop in clinically affected cows that lasted 60 days and extensive asymptomatic infections in other cows. The researchers observed clinical disease in about 20% of cows, with milk losses of about 900 kg per cow in the 60-day period that followed the outbreak. Higher risks were seen in cows which have borne more than one offspring when compared with those that were lactating for the first time. In outbreak developments, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service confirmed two more H5N1 cases in dairy cattle, both from Idaho, raising the national total to 985.
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The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin traveled to St. Louis, Missouri, to meet with Senator Josh Hawley and community members for a roundtable discussion on the West Lake Landfill. They discussed the work EPA and Senator Hawley are doing to help those impacted. The West Lake landfill Superfund Site was added to the National Priorities List in 1990. Administrator Zeldin also celebrated National Agriculture Day in Chesterfield, Missouri, at Stemme Farms, participating in a roundtable discussion hosted by the Missouri Farm Bureau. Local farmers, elected officials, and Farm Bureau leadership talked about water issues, crop protection and pesticides, biofuels, and more.
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The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced that Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. renewed the public health emergency declaration addressing our nation’s opioid crisis, which will allow sustained federal coordination efforts and preserve key flexibilities that enable HHS to continue leveraging expanded authorities to conduct certain activities in response to the opioid overdose crisis. The department has relied on this declaration to facilitate voluntary information collections, expedite demonstration projects related to substance use disorder treatment, and expedite support for research on opioid use disorder treatments. These activities facilitate multilevel coordination across the public and private sector alike, which ultimately, will continue to save lives.
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A new virtual reality simulation will use the idea that “seeing is believing” to show people why coastal evacuation orders are so important during storms. The simulation, called “Weather the Storm,” was funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Weather Program Office to improve storm surge preparation. When a tropical storm or hurricane approaches the coast, the wind can push large amounts of water onto land as storm surge. Between 1963 and 2012, storm surge was responsible for 49% of direct deaths from Atlantic tropical cyclones in the United States. The team believes the simulation will bring hurricane safety to a younger audience, reaching new people with the popular new technology.
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The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) has an opening for an Industrial Safety Professional in the Environment, Safety and Health Directorate to provide comprehensive industrial safety support to LLNL programs and operations requiring a broad application of practices and procedures. The Industrial Safety Specialist will provide comprehensive industrial safety support to LLNL programs and operations in specific areas of assignment; investigate accidents, incidents, and reports of occupational injury or illness for possible root cause; and evaluate industrial and construction-related activities, among other tasks. This position is hybrid, based in Livermore, California.
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