Join OSHA, CPWR, and many other safety & health organizations for Safe + Sound Week, August 12-18, 2019!  Register now at https://www.osha.gov/safeandsoundweek/ to let us know you’re participating and to stay current on Safe + Sound resources.

Safe + Sound Week is a nationwide event held each August that recognizes the successes of workplace health and safety programs and offers information and ideas on how to keep America’s workers safe.

Why Participate?
Successful safety and health programs can proactively identify and manage workplace hazards before they cause injury or illness, improving sustainability and the bottom line. Participating in Safe + Sound Week can help get your program started, energize an existing one, or provide a chance to recognize your safety successes.

Who Participates?
All organizations looking for an opportunity to recognize their commitment to safety are welcome to participate. Last year, more than 2,700 businesses helped to raise awareness about workers’ health and safety!

In honor of National Safety Month, NSC is hosting the following webinar on June 26th at 2:00pm Eastern:

Injury Facts: Data You Can Count On

Join Ken Kolosh, NSC Statistics Manager and the creator of Injury Facts – a free resource featuring interactive charts and graphs (injuryfacts.nsc.org), as he walks you through the website providing tips and tricks to get the most out of this free resource while exploring the latest trends, research and statistics.

Among the trends Mr. Kolosh will highlight:

• Preventable death trends by:
  • age
  • month
  • cause
• The prevalence of preventable/accidental deaths compared to homicide and suicide
• How the opioid overdose crisis is driving up preventable deaths
• Why traffic crashes are not going down
• The factors driving the workplace fatalities and injuries
• A comparison of fatality and injury trends by industry
• Profiles of the top workplace injury events
• The economic cost of preventable injuries and death
• Your updated “Odds of Dying”, as many Americans continue to worry about the wrong things.

Registration is required. Questions should be sent to feedback@nsc.org.

According to a recent blog post from the National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health (NIOSH), the opioid overdose epidemic continues to claim lives across the country with a record 47,600 overdose deaths in 2017. The crisis is taking an especially devastating toll on certain parts of the U.S. workforce, such as construction, which has high injury rates, physically demanding work, and other contributing factors such as high job demands, job insecurity, and lack of control over tasks. Medication-assisted treatment (MAT) has been effective for many people with opioid use disorder (OUD), allowing them to regain control of their OUD. A new resource from NIOSH, “Workplace Solutions: Medication-Assisted Treatment for Opioid Use Disorder” provides general information about MAT and information for employers wishing to assist or support workers with OUD.

Learn more about MAT and the opioid epidemic by reading the original Science Blog post: https://blogs.cdc.gov/niosh-science-blog/2019/05/24/opioid-mat/.

The National Safety Council has been leading National Safety Month since 1996.  This annual effort focuses on reducing leading causes of injury and death at work, on the road, and in homes and communities.  National Safety Month is more pertinent than ever as unintentional injuries have become the third leading cause of death in the U.S. for the first time in recorded history.  It’s especially important for us to take the time to focus on safety in construction, an industry who’s workers are at a higher risk for fatal injuries than any other industry.

To reverse this trend, we encourage everyone to celebrate National Safety Month and take steps to improve safety in our lives and the lives of those we care about. Free resources – including posters, tip sheets and other items – will be offered at nsc.org/nsm during each week of National Safety Month. Week one will focus on hazard recognition, week two on fall prevention, week three on fatigue and week four on impairment.

A new blog post from the National Safety Council highlights the dangers construction workers face when doing road and highway work.  While these types of jobs are dangerous year-round – construction workers account for 10% of nonfatal pedestrian vehicle incidents and 19% of all fatal pedestrian incidents – the increase in both summertime traffic and construction zones creates an even deadlier combination.

Learn more at www.nsc.org and remember, a distracted driver is a dangerous driver!