Hand injuries including cuts, strained muscles and tendons, damaged nerves, skin disorders, and burns can impact the quality of work, productivity – and even end careers.  According to the Occupational Safety & Health article, the BLS states that over 1 million workers are sent to the emergency room with hand injuries each year, but they aren’t the only ones affected.  “From lacerations and cuts to burns and broken bones, these injuries can be costly for employers. In 2011, the National Safety Council estimated the cost of hand injuries, and the results may be surprising to some employers: The direct cost of a laceration can be $10,000, stitches are often $2,000, and a severed tendon can be more than $70,000. It’s also important to note that these numbers don’t account for the indirect costs, like time away from work and lost productivity due to long-term damage, that are associated with even minor hand injuries.”

To learn more about the risks and prevention of hand injuries, read the full article at OH&S Online, and visit CPWR’s website devoted to this topic – ChooseHandSafety.com

OSHA’s Region 6 is hosting the second biennial OSHA Construction Safety and Health Conference on September 13-14, 2018 in Houston, Texas.  While Region 6 is hosting the event, it is open to anyone around the country with an interest in construction safety and health.  Attendees will learn about new safety products, processes, and technology in the construction industry.  In addition, OSHA officials will provide information on OSHA’s focus areas and share their role in supporting safety in the construction industry. 

 For more information, please see the press release and visit the conference website.

Manually lifting and moving heavy materials on job sites can result in strain, sprain, and related soft tissue injuries.  These types of injuries cost businesses billions of dollars and are a leading cause of disabling injuries in the construction industry. CPWR’s new Best Built Plans program responds to this issue by providing contractors and workers with practical tools and information to plan for safe manual materials handling while staying productive and profitable.  Learn more about the program, its components, including a site planning tool and interactive training and coaching resources, and how you can provide feedback to ensure it meets workers’ and contractors’ needs in this 30 minute webinar.

Presented by:  Eileen Betit, Research to Practice (r2p) Director, CPWR, Gary Gustafson, Training Director, CPWR, and John Strand, Social Marketing Consultant

The live webinar took place on Wednesday July 25^th, 2:00 pm Eastern and is now available as a recording here.

OSHA’s Safe + Sound Week  may be over, but the Campaign is continuing all year long. To learn more visit https://www.osha.gov/safeandsound.

To order free hardhat stickers to use during your Campaign efforts, please complete this form.

A new article in Safety & Health Magazine focuses on results from a CPWR study on hearing loss looking at Building Trades Medical Screening Program data from more than 19,000 workers previously employed at Department of Energy nuclear power sites.  The researchers found that 58 percent of the former construction workers had some form of hearing loss and, overall, had “significantly increased risk of hearing loss compared to reference populations.” In addition, those who worked for more than 30 years were nearly four times more likely to experience hearing loss than workers with fewer than 10 years on the job.

The full study can be found in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine.