RoadMAP2013
Improving Worker Health & Safety

 

May 2013
Dr. Lisa Mckenzie, Dr. Lee Newman, and Lili Tenney donning their best for Oscar Night.
*Special thanks to Lyndsay and Jesse Krisher for their amazing photography. Check out more pictures on our Facebook page*
UPCOMING EVENTS & OPPORTUNITIES
19th Annual Fall Technical Conference
By AIHA-RMS & ASSE

Save the date for this premiere local safety and industrial hygiene event of the year!   

 

When: September 17 - 18, 2013

Where: Arvada Center for Performing Arts

 

For more details please check out the flyer here 

JOB & FELLOWSHIP OPPORTUNITIES

The National Biosafety and Biocontainment Program (NBBTP) is now accepting applications for 2 year Fellowships.

 

This opportunity is for individuals who are seeking to work in high containment facilities to receive professional training in biosafety and biocontainment.

 

The NBBTP Fellowship is designed specifically for people interested in high-containment; this is an intensive 2 year, immersive experience where Fellows are introduced to all elements of Biosafety.

 

For eligibility guidelines look here

 

If you are ready to apply,click here  

 

For information regarding the Fellowships, NNBBTP Certificates, and Professional Development Courses click here.  

WHAT'S IN THE NEWS?

A special congratulations to Lauren Menger!

 

Lauren was accepted for this year's Fulbright Scholarship for her studies in Nepal. Because Nepali female sex workers are at risk for numerous occupational health risks, including HIV and other STIs, Lauren's work will include developing, implementing and evaluating peer-led sexual health interventions for commercial sex workers in Kathmandu.

 

Good luck Lauren, we look forward to hearing about your experience.  

Help a national effort to reduce exposures to hazardous silica dust!

 

NIOSH is looking for help from the community on a few research items such as testing low-cost solutions for protecting workers from silica exposure when cutting fiber cement siding. To find out more about these projects and to learn how you can get invovled, Click here.

 

School is out, now what?
  
School is out.  Students, if not already employed, will be on the hunt for summer jobs.  There are many benefits to summer employment for young workers, gaining valuable work experience and earning an income, to name a couple.  However, a number of hazards exist in the work environment that put younger workers at increased risk for injury and illness.   The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), estimates that every year in the United States 200,000 young workers are injured on the job.  To learn more about how to protect young workers visit the following sites containing resources for employers, young workers, and parents: NIOSHOSHA

 

A DIRECTOR'S NOTE
Lee Newman

The Fate and the Friends of NIOSH

 

For the third consecutive year, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has recommended the elimination of all NIOSH-funded Education and Research Centers and all NIOSH-funded Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing Programs in President Obama's Fiscal Year 2014 budget. The elimination of these centers would decimate our nation's ability to train future occupational health and safety professionals, shrink continuing education opportunities for practitioners, and undermine the research mission laid out in the National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA). Friends of NIOSH is a coalition of industry, labor, professional, education, and scientific organizations that understand the value of research, education and occupational illness and injury prevention.

 

On May 13, 2013, more than 200 Friends of NIOSH sent the attached letters to Representative Jack Kingston and Representative Rosa DeLauro (House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, HHS, Education), and a similar letter to Senator Tom Harkin and Senator Jerry Moran (Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, HHS, Education). I've attached copies of both letters.

 

For those of you who wish to express your opinion on this subject as individuals or on behalf of your own organization, you may wish to contact these members of Congress as well as your own state and district representatives, by phone, email, or fax.

 

Announcing the 2013 Pilot Project Award Recipients
Lyndsay Krisher

MAP ERC Announces 2013 Pilot Project Award Recipients

 

The MAP ERC recently announced the recipients of the 2013 Pilot Projects grant program.   In accordance with its mission, the MAP ERC offers grant funding to support projects in occupational and environmental safety and health. There are two types of projects that the MAP ERC supports through this grant program - scientific research projects and research-to- practice (R2P) projects. The long-term goals of the program are to improve health and safety and reduce risk in the mountain and plains region.

 

All of the grant proposals received this year were well written and innovative. After thorough consideration, five exceptional investigators were selected through a highly competitive scientific review process.

 

The 2013 MAP ERC Pilot Project grant recipients and their project titles are listed below:  

  • Kenneth Scott (UC Denver): "Feasibility Study of a Walking Intervention for Aging Healthcare Workers" 
  • Berrin Serdar (UC Denver): "Roof Core as a modifier of dermal exposures among hot asphalt roofers in Denver" 
  • Joshua Schaeffer (Colorado State University): "Modeling and Predicting Microbiomes in Dairies: a Metagenomic Assessment of Bioaerosols"
  • Georg Steinhauser (Colorado State University): "Rapid determination of low level neptunium-239"

Congratulations to the recipients! For more information on previous pilot projects, please visit the MAP ERC website.

Continuing Education News & Updates
Lili Tenney

MAP ERC Meets Industrial Hygiene Professionals in Montreal, Canada for AIHce 2013

 

We were pleased to join the American Industrial Hygiene Association in Montreal, Canada for the 2013 AIHce Conference and Expo.  For the second year in a row, our Center exhibited to promote our continuing education activities and graduate training programs.  Over 300 attendees visited our booth to learn more about CIH Online and other opportunities to strengthen and refine their practice in the field.   It was exciting visiting with international experts and seeing our IH faculty and our trainees in action.  

 

Special shout out to Amanda VanDyke for getting an award for Best Poster in the Microbiology group and Ashleigh Kayne for being awarded the AIH Foundation Scholarship. Keep up the great work! 

Don't Let the Heat of Summer Stress You Out.
Kaylan Stinson

It's getting HOT. Temperatures are starting to rise here in Colorado as we enter the summer months and outdoor workers may be at risk for heat-related illnesses and injuries.  Prevention is the best way to avoid heat-related illness.  NIOSH has developed some recommendations for both employers and employees to help reduce the risk of heat-related illness in outdoor workers.  To learn more about preventing heat-related illness click here.

TRAINEE SPOTLIGHT
Ashleigh Kayne
Each month we like to highlight one of our MAP ERC  trainees. This month we would like to put the spotlight on Ashleigh Kayne, a trainee in the Industrial Hygiene program.
  
A little about Ashleigh:
  

I originally went to art school in Brooklyn, New York because I wanted to design furniture. I could not continue my education there, so I worked a few different jobs including counting inventory at Home Depots for an independent third party and was the front end manager at Sams Club for a little while. I decided I really loved science and in order to work in a science-related field I needed to go back to school, so I got my Bachelor's of Science at Metropolitan State College of Denver in Environmental Science. I worked at two Denver-based consulting firms as a Staff Environmental Scientist working mainly in remediation and decided protecting workers' health and safety is more important than cleaning up spills. I then decided to pursue my Master's of Science in Industrial Hygiene and came to Colorado State University.

 

I currently work in John Volckens' aerosol lab, on the Fort Collins Commuter Study. I presented a poster at the American Industrial Hygiene Conference and Exhibition titled "The Contribution of Traffic-Light Intersections to Black Carbon Exposure While Commuting". This study evaluates the exposure of commuters when they are within 10 meters of a traffic-light intersection and how the following factors influence black carbon exposures: mode (cycling or driving), route (high- or low-traffic) and time (morning or evening). I received a pilot project grant from the MAP ERC in May 2012 for my thesis research which aims to characterize commuter's volatile organic compound exposure in real time.

  

 A little extra about Ashleigh:  

  • When I am not working I paint, draw, write, hike, backpack, cycle, and snowboard.
  •  I like to visit slot canons in the southwest and hot springs.
  •  I had my first art show since high school October 2012 in Fort Collins.

CWHE: If you were a flavor of ice cream, which on would you be and why?

 AK: If I could be any flavor of ice cream I would be vanilla. It is clean, crisp and straight to the point without any fluff.

 

CWHE:What do you think is the funniest looking piece of PPE and why 

AK: I think the funniest looking piece of PPE are gloveboxes - they give everyone Oompa Loompa arms.

 

Thank you Ashleigh! We love to hear about the ways people get into the field of occupational health and safety, and enjoyed hearing your story! You'll have to show us some of your art someday.

  

On another note, we'd like to congratulate Ashleigh on her achievement for getting the Foundation Scholarship at the 2013 American Industrial Hygiene conference in Montreal. Obviously we're not the only ones who recognize Ashleigh's hard work. Congratulations Ashleigh! We look forward to seeing where you go in the future. 

 
Research and Practice
Ken Scott

Wyoming is an interesting place. Did you know that Wyoming was the first state in the nation to grant women the right to vote, serve on juries and hold public office? These milestones help explain Wyoming's state nickname: "the Equality State." Another thing that sets Wyoming apart, compared to many other states, is the fact that Wyoming hired a state occupational epidemiologist to advise the Governor and legislators on reducing workplace injury and illness rates. The state occupational epidemiologist now sits in the Wyoming Department of Workforce Services after temporarily having a seat on the Governor's Cabinet.

 

Earlier this month, with our partners from the NIOSH Western States Office and the NIOSH-funded Agricultural Research Center at CSU (HICAHS), I traveled to Wyoming to do some outreach. We met with Dr. Mack Sewell, the occupational epidemiologist for Wyoming, as well as a number of other representatives of Wyoming's state agencies. In our meeting, it became clear to me that long after it granted women the right to vote, Wyoming still likes to go about things in their own way. In addition to taking tried-and-true approaches to track occupational injuries in the state (Dr. Sewell will likely utilize the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey to develop informative data), the Department of Workforce Services is experimenting with innovative incentive programs to encourage employers to invest in safer equipment. Stakeholders in industry, in partnership with Wyoming's State OSHA program, are also advancing safety and health "their own way." Several new safety alliances, modeled after the successful Wyoming Oil and Gas Industry Safety Alliance (WOGISA), have formed over the past year. These groups foster partnerships between companies in the same industry (there are now alliances in oil and gas, transportation, construction and refining) to learn from each other's safety programs.

 

It was encouraging to see how Wyoming has continued to develop capacity to address the high occupational fatality rates historically seen in the state. With a foundation laid by the initial state taskforce led by Judge Gary Hartman, ongoing work by NIOSH and the efforts of the first occupational epidemiologist, Dr. Tim Ryan, Wyoming is confronting workplace injuries with the same independent spirit that earned it its nickname.

2nd Annual Public Health Oscar Night
Michelle Haan
Sparkling jewelry, floor-length gowns, bow ties and tuxedos, and the finest bright green rubber gloves appeared on the red carpet at this year's 2nd Annual Public Health Oscar night. Facutly, students, and community members celebrated the end of the school year with a show case of final projects from the EHOH Introductory to Environmental and Occupational Health Class. Fine food, great drinks and popcorn added to the laughter and fun that commemorates this event each year. Our esteemed judges chose exceptional nominees for this year's Oscar winners. 
 
And the winners are. . . . 

 

Hydraulic Fracturing and Public Health a film by Paul Arangua, Ashely Bassett, Lucia Lapaz, Allison Moravec-Rice, Rhianon Schuman (Spring 2013 class)

 

Child Labor Safety in Agriculture  a film by Maragaret Araoye, Katherine Collins, Brittany Gibbons, Akina Lantow, Melissa Leventhal (Spring 2013 class)

 

Health Screenings for Refugees a film by Fatimah Alhussain, Lindsay Eichman, Amy Nacht, Sarah Recktenwall-Work (Fall 2012 class)

 

In Utero Exposure to Organophosphate Pesticides a film by Mariela Cahow, Shiny Mathew, Kendyl Salcito, Marina Tarasova, Amanda Waggoner (Spring 2013 class)

 

Sugar Sweetened Beverages a film by Teresa Foo, Jessica Moore, Margaret O'Neil-Frater, Kristen Olinik, Manal Zabarmawi (Fall 2012 class)

 

**Note: Click on the titles to view the winning films**

 

             

 

 

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