Categories: Agriculture, forestry, and fishing, Construction, Emergency response, Oil and gas, Outdoor work, Transportation, Vehicle safety
January 10th, 2013 12:18 pm ET -
Jim Helmkamp, PhD, MS
Trabajador jalando un tronco en una pequeña operación forestal.
Durante los últimos treinta años, los vehículos todo-terreno (VTT) se han vuelto cada vez más populares a nivel recreativo y se han convertido en una herramienta importante en el trabajo. Con unos 11 millones en uso en el 2010, tanto en actividades laborales como recreativas, los VTT se han vuelto un medio de transporte común.
Los VTT se empezaron a fabricar a fines de la década de 1960 como vehículos para el traslado del campo a la ciudad, en áreas aisladas y montañosas de Japón. Se comenzaron a usar en los Estados Unidos a principios de los años ochenta para la agricultura. Los VTT tienen muchas
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Categories: Agriculture, forestry, and fishing, Construction, Emergency response, Oil and gas, Outdoor work, Transportation, Vehicle safety
October 24th, 2012 8:33 am ET -
Jim Helmkamp, PhD, MS
Worker hauling log during small-scale forestry operation
Over the past 30 years, all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) have grown increasingly popular recreationally and have become a valuable asset at work. With an estimated 11 million in use in 2010 for both work and recreation, ATVs have become a common means of transportation.
ATVs were first manufactured in the late 1960s as farm-to-town vehicles for use in isolated, mountainous areas in Japan. They were first introduced in the U.S. for agricultural applications in the early 1980s. ATVs have many unique features that enable them to operate in a variety of harsh environments where other larger, less mobile vehicles cannot be used, making them very useful in the workplace.
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Categories: At-risk populations, Cancer, reproductive and cardiovascular diseases, Emergency response, Outdoor work, Personal protective equipment, Respiratory health
July 13th, 2012 4:40 pm ET -
Corey Campbell and Liz Dalsey
Photo courtesy of Todd Wyckoff, New Jersey Forestry Services
Wildland fires continue to increase in the Western United States as hot, dry and windy conditions persist, resulting in an extended fire season and factors conducive to fires. Currently, drought conditions are prevalent in the West due to low snow-pack levels, below average rainfall, record setting temperatures and high winds, resulting in a greater than average number of fires this year. Since January 2012, over 32,000 fires have burned almost 3.3 million acres in the US. [NIFC, 2012a]. Additionally, in the last 50 years, there has been a general increase in the occurrence and severity of forest wildfires in the US, as over 5 million wildfires have burned over 206 million acres [NIFC, 2012b].
When wildland fires occur in the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI), the area where houses meet undeveloped land, they can easily become catastrophic because a large number of people, homes and structures are at-risk. When a fire ignites in these areas, a quick and aggressive response from wildland fire agencies and wildland fire fighters is required.
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Categories: Construction, Outdoor work, Personal protective equipment
April 26th, 2012 12:10 pm ET -
Christine Branche, PhD; Pietra Check, MPH; Janie Gittleman, PhD, MRP; Scott Schneider, MS, CIH; Pete Stafford
One sunny June morning in 2009, Hector* went to work just as he had every other morning. He climbed to the roof as usual to begin working. But this day was different. In an instant, Hector was hanging over the outside edge of the second story wall of the home the residential construction company he worked for was building.
While working on the top plate of the two-story home, Hector had lost his balance. As he stumbled, he had tried to regain his footing by stepping on a pressure block, but the block blew out and he had fallen.
Fortunately, because Hector was using fall protection he is not among the thousands of workers we remember this year on Workers’ Memorial Day, April 28, 2012. He fell only inches, not two stories. He was pulled back up onto the roof by a coworker, treated with first aid for a minor cut on his leg, and returned to work.
In an effort to create more successful outcomes like Hector’s, this Workers’ Memorial Day NIOSH and its partners are announcing a new campaign to prevent falls in the construction industry. Falls are the top cause of death in construction and account for one-third of all on-the-job deaths in the industry. Each year in the U.S. over 200 construction workers are killed and over 10,000 are seriously injured by falls.
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