Columns

To mark Women’s History Month, Safety+Health Associate Editor Barry Bottino has written about some of the safety issues experienced by today’s working women.

Despite the recent withdrawal of OSHA’s emergency temporary standard on COVID-19 vaccination, testing and masking and the partial withdrawal of the agency’s ETS on COVID-19 for health care workers, a lot of questions remain regarding mask and respirator use.

Bilbao, Spain — Promoting good musculoskeletal health among remote workers and their employers is the goal of a new fact sheet from the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, also known as EU-OSHA.

The unified agenda is intended to let the “regulated community” know what the different agencies are working on, or planning to work on, over the next six months. It’s an interesting document. Some administrations put everything they can think of on it – whether they’re actually working on it or not. Others keep it simple by listing only what they’re actually intending to work on. My preference has always been the latter.

Atlanta — People who travel frequently for business may have trouble keeping the pounds off, researchers from Emory University say.

“How leaders set the tone and how they own the results – and all things in between – affect exposure, because their messages and actions carry weight,” says David Musgrave of DEKRA.

Adelaide, Australia — Open toilet lids, defective plumbing drains and uncovered trash cans may increase the risk of bacterial and viral disease transmission in public restrooms, according to a recent research review.

If you’re a back-page reader like I am, you’ll notice right away this month the kickoff of a new column. “On Research” will feature contributors to the Journal of Safety Research, which operates under the day-to-day direction of my National Safety Council colleague, JSR Managing Editor Katie Porretta.

Journal of Safety Research contributors talk about their work. Kicking things off is researcher Tristan Casey, who answers questions about his study on “making safety training stickier.”

“First, leaders can stop pretending daily life is back to normal. The pandemic remains a dangerous reality,” say Bruce Madsen and Rebecca Timmins of DEKRA.