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At least 955 records · Page 53Linked to original sources
PubMed1997

In vivo analysis of cadmium in battery workers versus measurements of blood, urine, and workplace air.

OBJECTIVES: To measure in vivo the cadmium concentrations in kidney cortex (kidney-Cd) and in superficial liver tissue (liver-Cd) of nickel cadmium battery workers, and to compare the results with other commonly used estimates of cadmium exposure (current concentrations of cadmium in blood (B-Cd) and urine (U-Cd)) or repeated measurements of cadmium in workplace air (CumAir-Cd). METHODS: The study comprised 30 workers with a range of duration of exposure of 11-51 years. 13 subjects were currently employed, whereas the other 17 had a median period without occupational exposure of eight years before the measurements. The in vivo measurements were made with an x ray fluorescence technique permitting average detection limits of 30 and 3 micrograms cadmium per g tissue in kidney and liver, respectively. RESULTS: 19 of 30 (63%) people had kidney-Cd and 13 of 27 (48%) had liver-Cd above the detection limits. Kidney-Cd ranged from non-detectable to 350 micrograms/g and liver-Cd from non-detectable to 80 micrograms/g. The median kidney-Cd and liver-Cd were 55 micrograms/g and 3 micrograms/g, respectively. Kidney-Cd correlated significantly with B-Cd (r, 0.49) and U-Cd (r, 0.70), whereas liver-Cd correlated significantly with U-Cd (r, 0.58). Neither kidney-Cd nor liver-Cd correlated with the CumAir-Cd. The prevalence of beta 2-microglobulinurea increased with increased liver-Cd. CONCLUSIONS: Current U-Cd can be used to predict the kidney-Cd and liver-Cd measured in vivo. In vivo measurements of kidney-Cd and liver-Cd were not shown to correlate with the individual cadmium exposure estimates, obtained by integration of the cadmium concentration in workplace air. There may be several reasons for this, including uncertainties in the estimate of the individual cumulative exposures as well as in the in vivo measurements. There was a suggestion of a relation between liver-Cd and tubular proteinuria.

Aged↗
PubMed2000

Workplace bullying and sickness absence in hospital staff.

OBJECTIVES: In the past, evidence on the negative consequences of workplace bullying has been limited to cross sectional studies of self reported bullying. In this study, these consequences were examined prospectively by focusing on sickness absence in hospital staff. METHODS: The Poisson regression analyses of medically certified spells (>/=4 days) and self certified spells (1-3 days) of sickness absence, relating to bullying and other predictors of health, were based on a cohort of 674 male and 4981 female hospital employees aged 19-63 years. Data on sickness absence were gathered from employers' registers. Bullying and other predictors of health were measured by a questionnaire survey. RESULTS: 302 (5%) of the employees reported being victims of bullying. They did not differ from the other employees in terms of sex, age, occupation, type of job contract, hours of work, income, smoking, alcohol consumption, or physical activity. Victims of bullying had higher body mass and prevalence of chronic disease, and their rates of medically and self certified spells of sickness absence were 1.5 (95% confidence interval (95% CI) 1.3 to 1.7) and 1.2 (1.1 to 1.4) times higher than those of the rest of the staff. The rate ratios remained significant after adjustment for demographic data, occupational background, behaviour involving risks to health, baseline health status, and sickness absence. CONCLUSION: Workplace bullying is associated with an increase in the sickness absenteeism of the hospital staff. Targets of bullying seem not to belong to any distinct group with certain demographic characteristics or occupational background.

Adult↗
PubMed2006

[Road traffic, leisure, domestic and workplace injuries. A description of the situation in Spain].

The aim is to describe impact on health of unintentional injuries (E800-E949, CIE-9) (V01-X59, Y40-Y86, Y88, Y89 CIE10) in terms of mortality and morbidity and to make certain recommendations regarding information systems. Transport, including occupational transport, is the activity that causes highest mortality, 5,920 in 2002. However, the overall number of deaths for the rest of circumstances where injuries occurred (falls, burns, drowning and others) rises to 5,032, the above being injuries that take place where we live and work, that is domestic, leisure and workplace settings. For the severity of road traffic injuries data are provided from the analysis of the Minimum Basic Data Set after Hospital Discharge in Spain. Differences are shown between severe injuries reported by the Traffic General Directorate (26,566) and hospital discharges for the same year (40,174). For leisure and domestic injuries, Primary Health Care sentinel networks are those producing the most information about the situation, particularly in the field of childhood injuries. The consultation incidence for this cause fluctuates between 931 and 1118 in the under 14s and between 1306 and 1971 in the under 5 s. For injuries occurring in the workplace the best information is provided by specific registry systems. Their incidence was 75.5 for the year 2000 and 70.5 in year 2002 for every 1000 workers paying national insurance.

Accidents, Home↗
PubMed1986

Health educators in the workplace: helping companies respond to the AIDS crisis.

As the number of cases of AIDS increases, more and more companies will have to decide how to handle employees with AIDS and those at high risk. AIDS creates medical, legal, and ethical issues in the workplace, all of which are emotional and complex; managers need expert assistance to guide their decision-making and policy development. This article identifies various dimensions of the AIDS-related issues emerging in corporations nationwide, including: confidentiality, the right of patients to work, benefits and insurance, HTLV-III screening, fears of contagion among workers, needs of companies to avoid financial and legal exposure, and effects on worker productivity. Health educators are in a unique position to contribute to the satisfactory resolution of AIDS-related problems in the workplace through their training and experience in education, policy development and the relevant legal and ethical issues in the health care field. However, they will have to initiate discussions with corporation executives themselves in order to reach this most important audience.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome↗
PubMed1987

Workplace health promotion: a commentary on the evolution of a paradigm.

Reports of workplace health promotion programs are reviewed in light of Kuhn's views on paradigmatic advances in science. Such reports fall into two categories: those which describe single health-habit interventions (e.g., smoking cessation, weight control, or stress management) and those which describe comprehensive efforts to incorporate many single health-habit interventions into integrated programs. Common to virtually all of these programs in their focus on the modification of the health behavior of individuals. Consideration of such organizational-level factors as work design or climate which are beyond the control of the individual, yet may contribute heavily to illness and absenteeism of employees, is typically omitted. It is concluded that workplace health promotion in the United States has achieved the status of a paradigm and that this paradigm is associated with several limitations and ethical problems in light of the programs' objectives: to reduce organizations' medical-care costs and improve productivity.

Environment↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Workplace carcinogen and pesticide exposures in Costa Rica.

The CAREX data system converts national workforce volumes and proportions of workers exposed to workplace carcinogens into numbers of exposed in 55 industrial categories. CAREX was adapted for Costa Rica for 27 carcinogens and seven groups of pesticides. Widespread workplace carcinogens in the 1.3 million workforce of Costa Rica are solar radiation (333,000 workers), diesel engine exhaust (278,000), environmental tobacco smoke (71,000), hexavalent chromium compounds (55,000), benzene (52,000), wood dust (32,000), silica dust (27,000), lead and inorganic lead compounds (19,000), and polycyclic aromatic compounds (17,000). The most ubiquitous pesticides were paraquat and diquat (175,000), mancozeb, maneb, and zineb (49,000), chlorothalonil (38,000), benomyl (19,000), and chlorophenoxy herbicides (11,000). Among women, formaldehyde, radon, and methylene chloride overrode pesticides, chromium, wood dust, and silica dust in numbers of exposed. High-risk sectors included agriculture, construction, personal and household services, land and water transport and allied services, pottery and similar industries, woodworks, mining, forestry and logging, fishing, manufacturing of electrical machinery, and bar and restaurant personnel.

Carcinogens↗
PubMed2005

Gay and bisexual men who disclose their sexual orientations in the workplace have higher workday levels of salivary cortisol and negative affect.

BACKGROUND: Previous research has shown that gay and bisexual men who conceal their sexual orientation suffer more adverse physical health problems relative to men who are more "out." However, little is known about the physiological mechanisms underlying this association. PURPOSE: This study examined whether concealing sexual orientation in the workplace was associated with increased workday levels of salivary cortisol. METHODS: Seventy-three gay and bisexual men responded to questionnaires assessing the extent to which they are open about their sexual orientations at work and other aspects of their work environment. Men then provided saliva samples and reports of negative affect throughout 2 consecutive days--1 at home and 1 at work. RESULTS: Contrary to expectations, being more out at work was associated with higher workday levels of salivary cortisol (B = 0.21, SE B = 0.09, p < .05) and higher workday reports of negative affect (B = 0.14, SE B = 0.07, p < .05), controlling for home day values. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that it is disclosure rather than nondisclosure of sexual orientation by gay men in the workplace that is associated with emotional and physiological activation; a pattern that may have implications for their long-term adaptation.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1990

Persistence of toluene diisocyanate-induced asthma despite negligible workplace exposures.

Six polyurethane foam workers were shown to have TDI-induced asthma by specific inhalation challenge testing. All remained in the workplace in jobs with minimal TDI exposures. Mean and time-weighted average exposure concentration for the asthmatic group was 0.64 +/- 0.46 ppb, less than 5 percent of the permissible exposure limit and significantly less (p less than 0.01) than the mean TWA exposures occurring in the foam line and the finishing workers. Serial evaluation of the respiratory health of these six showed all persisted with respiratory symptoms, none had improvement in bronchial hyperresponsiveness to methacholine, and three had a greater than 15 percent decline in FEV1 on one of the days of spirometric testing over the five-year period from 1982 to 1986. Although we could not have predicted the outcome of asthma had these workers left the workplace and ceased isocyanate exposure entirely, occupational asthma persisted despite negligible ongoing TDI exposures.

Asthma↗
PubMed2002

[A survey of utilization of and problems with the MSDS in chemical substances management at workplaces in Kanagawa Prefecture].

Kanagawa Occupational Health Promotion Center conducted a survey on how the MSDS is utilized at workplaces with more than 50 employees handling chemical substances, and what measures are taken to help employees to thoroughly understand information in the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS). Questionnaires were sent out to 265 enterprises in Kanagawa prefecture, putting questions to industrial physicians and industrial hygiene supervisors. The objective of the survey was to find out how MSDS is adopted in the system to manage occupational health, what improvements the survey respondents want in MSDS and what expectations the respondents have of our center. 193 enterprises (72.8%) returned answers to the questionnaire. The major findings are as follows. (1) In many companies, information on hazardous/toxic materials is "controlled by a division using such materials", and roughly half of the companies have compiled a common list shared throughout the company. (2) For the most part suppliers submit to the MSDS. Larger companies have a higher rate of posting up or filing the MSDS at their workplaces. Only 25.8% of the companies "rewrite the MSDS so that workers can understand it." (3) Companies that carry out a hazard/toxicity assessment before introducing a new chemical substance account for 72.1%, which is higher than we expected. It indicates that even though the companies don't manage the MSDS adequately, they are highly concerned about hazard control of chemical substances. (4) The rate of answering that "the current MSDS is not easy to understand" is higher among large-sized enterprises and lower among enterprises with fewer than 300 employees. (5) Asked what improvement needs to be made on the MSDS, the industrial physicians and industrial hygiene supervisors gave same answers such as "Workers find the terminology difficult to understand." and "Levels of toxicity can't be clearly identified." (6) The respondents expect our center to provide information for the MSDS. In conclusion, it is considered that in order to prepare understandable MSDSs to workers in enterprises, the role of our center to provide information and education on the MSDS to respondents was important.

Hazardous Waste↗
PubMed2005

Promoting health and productivity for depressed patients in the workplace.

OBJECTIVE: To discuss the impact of major disease states, including depression, in the loss of productivity in the workplace and how integration of health care can decrease cost to employers. SUMMARY: The majority of costs associated with depressive illness can be traced to lost productivity, and the employer, therefore, bears most of the economic burden. Efforts to improve employee health and productivity have been hampered by the compartmentalization of medical costs, pharmacy costs, behavioral health costs, and productivity measures. This situation can be rectified by "busting" these silos and promoting a reintegration of prospective costs and parties. Health risk assessments enable employers to identify illnesses that are suitable targets for integrated health and productivity management programs. In the case of depression, employers can act proactively to identify employees at risk, working to minimize risk factors such as stress before these individuals become heavy utilizers of company resources. For employees who are currently depressed, recent research evidence has demonstrated that pharmacotherapy can have a dramatic and positive effect on lost productivity, absenteeism, and presenteeism. The selection of antidepressants and subsequent follow-up must be improved, however, if the benefits of pharmacotherapy are to be optimized. CONCLUSION: Understanding the linkage of disease management and productivity in the workplace can result in dramatic decreases in absenteeism and presenteeism and increased cost savings to the employers.

Absenteeism↗
PubMed1990

Effects of workplace smoking bans on cigarette consumption.

A sample of staff working in the Australian Public Service (n = 2113) were surveyed two to four weeks before a mandated total ban on workplace smoking was introduced, and again five to six months later. Among the 391 smokers on whom complete data were available, the workplace smoking bans were associated with reduced rates of smoking, particularly among heavier smokers where the reduction in consumption was over 25 percent.

Australia↗
PubMed1990

The effects of workplace health promotion on absenteeism and employment costs in a large industrial population.

We evaluated the impact of a comprehensive workplace health promotion program on absences among full-time employees in a large, multi-location, diversified industrial company. A pretest-posttest control group design was used to study 41 intervention sites and 19 control sites with 29,315 and 14,573 hourly employees, respectively. Blue-collar employees at intervention sites experienced an 14.0 percent decline in disability days over two years versus a 5.8 percent decline at control sites. This resulted in a net difference of 11,726 fewer disability days over two years at program sites compared with non-program sites. Savings due to lower disability costs at intervention sites offset program costs in the first year, and provided a return of $2.05 for every dollar invested in the program by the end of the second year. These results suggest that comprehensive workplace health promotion programs can reduce disability days among blue collar employees and provide a good return on investment.

Absenteeism↗
PubMed1991

Female homicides in United States workplaces, 1980-1985.

BACKGROUND: Women, while noted for low occupational injury mortality rates, are more likely to die as victims of assault than from any other manner of injury at work. METHODS: From the National Traumatic Occupational Fatality surveillance data, 950 women were identified who were fatally assaulted at work. Homicide rates were calculated for the demographic and employment characteristics of these women. Risk ratios among types of lethal injuries were examined. RESULTS: During 1980-1985, the crude six-year workplace homicide rate was 4.0 deaths per million working women: one twentieth the homicide rate of the US female population. Decedents ranged from 16 years (the lowest age included in the data base) to 93 years of age. Working women older than 65 years had the highest age-specific homicide rate, 11.3 per million. Women younger than 20 had the lowest, 2.5 per million per year. Homicide rates for women of races other than White were nearly twice as high as those of Whites. The leading causes of death were gunshot wounds (64 percent), stabbings (19 percent), asphyxiations (7 percent), and blunt force trauma (6 percent). Nearly 43 percent of the deceased women had been employed in retail trade: 8.7 per million employed women annually. CONCLUSIONS: During 1980-1985, only 6 percent of the nation's victims of work-related injury deaths were female: 41 percent of those women were murdered. Homicide is currently the leading manner of traumatic workplace death among women in the United States.

Accidents, Occupational↗
PubMed2002

Singaporean graduate majors in education perceptions of workplaces and roles of psychologists.

This paper examined perceptions of workplaces and roles of psychologists of 315 Singaporean undergraduate students in education. The participants rated the appropriateness of 21 workplaces and 32 roles of psychologists using a 7-point scale. The group showed restricted views of psychology and psychologists as they related psychologists' work mainly to social and organizational services and referred roles of psychologists to giving social services related to delinquency and disorders.

Adult↗
PubMed1997

A new trend in the study of low back pain in workplaces.

In 1996, the number of low back pain (LBP) cases totaled 5,162 in Japan, accounting for 60% of the total number of officially recognized cases of occupational diseases. In recent decades, the number of LBP cases, however, has been gradually decreasing. The rate of this decrease is slower in non-manufacturing industries than in other sectors, while the prevalence rate of LBP has tended to increase among workers in tertiary industries in 1995 and 1996. Epidemiological studies have clarified that workplace factors of LBP include not only the handling of heavy materials, but also unnatural postures, sudden and unexpected motions, and individual worker's characteristics. It was, therefore, suggested that comprehensive countermeasures to prevent LBP be undertaken on the basis of work environmental control, work management practice, and health care. The Labor Ministry of Japan issued guidelines for the prevention of LBP in 1994, in which various factors in the work environment, the importance of readiness for motion, standardization of work procedures, and exercise before work were newly outlined. In addition to the psychophysical and biomechanical models of LBP so far reported, established findings of physiological studies on muscle tone and postural reflexes have been conceptually introduced into the guidelines. Such physiological findings are essential for the mechanistic elucidation of work-related LBP and the preparation of its countermeasures, as LBP can also be caused by sudden and unexpected motions as well as various environmental factors. Physical and mental readiness to cope with changes in voluntary motions is a prerequisite for the prevention of LBP in daily work, which constitutes time-sequential changes in posture and motion under various environmental conditions. This paper critically reviews the workplace factors of LBP, its models for evaluating the workload on the body, and environmental risk factors with reference to the neural control of muscle contraction underlying the voluntary motion of workers.

Biomechanical Phenomena↗
PubMed1991

Chronic or intractable medical problems associated with prolonged exposure to unsuspected harmful environmental electric, magnetic or electro-magnetic fields radiating in the bedroom or workplace and their exacerbation by intake of harmful light and heavy metals from common sources.

Unsuspected prolonged exposure to abnormal environmental (very high frequency) electro-magnetic fields (EMF), electric fields (EF) or magnetic fields (MF) at 60 Hz or 16K Hz in the bedroom or workplace may contribute to the development of various intractable medical problems. Most of the clinical symptoms appear when the individuals are exposed to EMF for many hours a day for at least several months to 1-year for relatively benign diseases or symptoms (such as intractable pain or medical problems), or several to over 10 years for more serious diseases (such as cancers of the digestive system or other organs), all of which seem to appear with the additional co-existence of micro-circulatory disturbances with Thromboxane B2 (TXB2), bacterial or viral infections and decrease or absence of acetylcholine, and lead, mercury, or aluminum deposits, with or without asbestos. These abnormal environmental EMF's or EF's can be detected by the Bi-Digital O-Ring Test, which has good correlation with standard laboratory measurement, especially with EF measurement, and the distribution of EMF often includes a linear band-like appearance on the abnormal part of the patient's body, as well as on the patient's corresponding area of the bed, or at the workplace. These EMF's can be eliminated either by a metal sheet, acting as a reflector, which redirects the harmful EMF or eliminates it completely by grounding the metal sheet at high frequency range, while extremely low frequency (ELF) magnetic fields at the near field are more difficult to eliminate. Several examples of medical problems that appear to be associated with repeated and prolonged exposure to abnormal environmental EMF, EF or MF are summarized in this article. EF or MF-induced abnormalities were artificially and reversibly created in humans by exposing the extremities or head to a 10Volt/Meter (V/M) EF at 60 Hz about 33 (evening) to 50 cm (daytime or after midnight) from a pair of rubber insulated wires connected to an AC source, but where no current is passed, so that no extra MF exists. After exposing normal parts of the extremities and head to a 10 V/M EF for 5 minutes, abnormal increase of TXB2 and disappearance or significant reduction of acetylcholine was observed for 5 minutes, and slightly longer abnormal time duration was observed in those who have aluminum, lead, or mercury deposits. This indicates that the upper limit of relatively safe EF should be around 10V/M at 60 Hz rather than 25V/M at ELF by Swedish Government recommendation, which is now widely accepted.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Double jeopardy: workplace hazards and behavioral risks for craftspersons and laborers.

PURPOSE: To address three specific questions in a sample of craftspersons and laborers: (1) Do craftspersons and laborers exposed to workplace hazards have higher behavioral risks, such as smoking and high-fat diets, than those with few job risks? (2) Compared to workers with few job risks, do workers exposed to risks on the job have higher intentions to reduce their behavioral risks? (3) Does concern about the level of exposure to risks on the job increase workers' intentions to reduce behavioral risks? DESIGN: A cross-sectional self-administered survey was conducted in participating worksites. SETTING: Twenty-two predominantly manufacturing worksites in Massachusetts. SUBJECTS: Craftspersons and laborers responding to the survey and employed in these 22 worksites (completion rate = 61%, N = 1841). MEASURES: By using standardized items, this survey measured self-reported exposure to workplace hazards, concern about job exposures, smoking status, fat and fiber intake, readiness to quit smoking, plans to reduce fat intake, plans to eat more fruits and vegetables, and sociodemographic variables. RESULTS: Workers reporting exposure to chemical hazards on the job were significantly more likely to be smokers than were unexposed workers, even when results were controlled for gender. Compared with unexposed workers, smokers exposed to chemical hazards were significantly more likely to be thinking of quitting or taking action to quit, when results were controlled for gender, race, and education. Among workers exposed to occupational chemical hazards, concern about this exposure was significantly associated with intentions to decrease fat intake and increase fruit and vegetable intake, and, among men, intentions to quit smoking. CONCLUSIONS: Efforts aimed at integrating health promotion and health protection are needed to address simultaneously the job risks and personal risks these workers face.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Promoting reduced smoking rates in the context of workplace smoking bans.

A randomized study was conducted in 41 workplaces to determine the potential of self-help and group-based programs to encourage reduced smoking in workplaces that have implemented smoking bans. The trial had limited success in recruiting smokers, attrition was an important limitation, and the study outcomes were modest. The authors conclude that more research is needed on effective strategies that help smokers minimize smoking at work.

Adult↗