CAL-OSHA is the latest in a number of states that have passed an Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) to specifically protect workers from COVID-19. While federal OSHA has resisted passing any specific worker safety regulations regarding COVID; Virginia, Oregon,...
Linking job characteristics to mortality
This past week, an article in the Journal of Applied Psychology of the American Psychological Association found that job demands affect employee health outcomes. In This job is (literally) killing me: A moderated-mediated model linking work characteristics to...
Health and safety consequences of Reopening Schools
Marnie Dobson, PhD, Pouran Faghri, MD In July as part of the Healthy Work Campaign, we published Reopening Schools: Mental Health vs Health & Safety on the debate raging in the U.S. about whether schools (K-12) could safely re-open in the fall for in-person...
Letter to the editor re air travel published by JAMA
When Passengers Remove Masks Flying Remains a Risk Published Oct 1 Peter Schnall, Professor of Medicine | U of California at Irvine Airlines continue to make progress in improving the safety of passengers from contacting and contracting Covid-19. The filtered air in...
CDC Reverses Itself Once Again. They are STILL WRONG.
The CDC has reversed itself once again about the transmissibility of the COVID-19 virus. On their website — updated yesterday — they said “A draft version of proposed changes to these recommendations was posted in error to the agency’s official website. CDC is...
Workplace conditions that are contributing to the Covid-19 epidemic
Workplace conditions for essential workers typically have three characteristics that contribute to increased risk of exposure to the Covid-19 virus and, once infected, more severe illness:Enclosed spacesHigh population densityPersistent work stressors contribute to...
Healthy Work this Labor Day!
On this Labor Day weekend, we have to recognize the toll this pandemic has taken on the lives of so many workers. Essential workers, including bus drivers, grocery workers, food processing/meat-packing workers, health care workers and many others have been risking...
Black Lives Matter: Perspectives from the Healthy Work Campaign
Along with the coronavirus pandemic, America’s epidemic of racism has taken a disproportionate number of black* lives.We watched the Black Lives Matter protests erupt in early June, after another white police officer kneeled on the neck and suffocated another black...
Stress in the Time of COVID-19
As we published our new Medium Article last week Blurred Boundaries: Work-life balance in the time of COVID-19, we received a newly released Stress in America report from the American Psychological Association (APA) on Stress in the Time of COVID-19. Between March 26...
Is the government giving up on protecting working people from Covid-19
It appears that the U.S. government is exploring the possibility of trying to get working people back on the job without providing them with adequate protection in the form of PPE or insisting on proper social distancing. Sending people back to work without protection...