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Occupational health and safety apps are on the rise – and many are free.
As technology continues to evolve, workplace safety needs to adapt as well.
That’s why cell-phone apps designed for oh&s functions have become important in the marketplace.
New programs for Smartphones and tablets can assist with all kinds of tasks, ranging from safety inspections and incident reports to emergency alerts and contacting remote colleagues when alone and in danger.
“Lives are at stake,” says Matthew Ross, media manager with ProntoForms Corporation, a mobile-solution company based in Kanata, Ontario. “People absolutely need to be able to process these types of info as fast as possible.”
ProntoForms has created an app that sends and receives forms and vital work information quickly.
“With the push of a button, the info is sent to wherever you like,” Ross explains. “You can send to a variety of cloud services.”
Such forms could include inspection checklists, safety lists, data on hazardous materials, action reports and even statements from accident witnesses, he adds.
“We’ve got such incredible positive feedback from clients because the processing is so much faster.”
Apart from increased safety, a side benefit of the ProntoForms app is a sharp reduction in paperwork.
“People are looking to help make their lives easier and make their jobs easier,” says Jason Grouette, business manager of the personal safety division for 3M Canada in London, Ontario.
3M Canada provides a practical new app that assists employees assigned to buy safety equipment for their companies, including distributors, health and safety managers and some end users.
Simply called Safety, the app gives the user instant access to more than 2,400 workplace safety products available from 3M.
Honeywell Safety Products in Morristown, New Jersey offers a similar product, the Media App, which gives users access to product information and learning resources on personal protective equipment available from Honeywell.
So why have workplace safety apps become more prevalent?
“We are in a different world that we were a decade ago,” says Grouette. “People have an expectation of finding answers very quickly and addressing problems quickly.”
“It’s driven by a bunch of things,” explains Ross. “The technology on Smartphones and tablets has gotten stronger and more powerful. So it has enabled us to include better features, time-savings, cost savings, high-productivity features. Another thing is the BYOD trend – bring-your-own-device trend – in businesses, so companies are more comfortable with employees using their own devices.”
Ross points out that the construction and oil and gas industries tend to supply ProntoForms’ biggest customers for health and safety products. But restaurant chains also use the ProntoForms app for information about cleanliness and other oh&s issues, he adds.
“The speed of data collection and processing is something that is invaluable in the industry.”
Grouette lists oil and gas, mining and manufacturing as sectors that benefit highly from 3M’s products, including the Safety app.
Many safety apps, including some of the aforementioned ones, are available to employers and workers for free.
Source: OHS Canada. This article has been edited for length.
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Welding without proper ventilation is a health-risk
Image: FreeDigitalPhotos
OSHA finds Imperial Industries ignores rules to prevent toxic exposure
Workers welding stainless steel and other alloy steels containing chromium metal at a Wisconsin bulk storage tank manufacturer were exposed to hazardous levels of hexavalent chromium.
At high levels, hexavalent chromium can cause lung cancer and respiratory, eye and skin damage.
After a complaint, U.S. Department of Labor Occupational Safety and Health Administration inspectors visited Imperial Industries in Rothschild and identified two willful and 12 serious safety violations.
Proposed penalties total $161,100.
“Each year 50,000 workers die from exposures to hazardous substances like chromium during their careers. Failing to take steps to limit exposure to this dangerous substance is inexcusable,” said Robert Bonack, area director of OSHA’s Appleton office.
“Workers pay the price when companies don’t follow standards to reduce injuries and illnesses. Imperial Industries needs to take immediate steps to comply with safety and health standards.”
Inspectors determined employees were exposed to hexavalent chromium at levels exceeding permissible exposure limits while welding steels containing chromium metal. Chromium is added to harden alloy steel and help it resist corrosion.
Additionally, the company failed to implement engineering controls to reduce and monitor exposure levels among workers.
The November 2014 investigation also found workers endangered by amputation and struck-by hazards because machines lacked safety mechanisms.
Numerous electrical safety hazards were also identified, and workers were found operating damaged powered industrial vehicles.
Imperial Industries manufactures heavy gauge metal industrial tanks that are typically mounted to commercial trucks.
Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, employers are responsible for providing safe and healthful workplaces for their employees.
OSHA’s role is to ensure these conditions for America’s working men and women by setting and enforcing standards, and providing training, education and assistance.
Source: OSHA
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Check out Electrocorp’s welding fume extractors or browse other industrial and commercial applications. For more information, contact Electrocorp by calling 1-866-667-0297 or e-mailing sales@electrocorp.net.
US salons will employ more than 100,000 workers by 2022
Many nail salon workers are women of reproductive age who may be exposed to toxic chemicals.
When New York City Public Advocate Letitia James, JD, announced that her office was releasing a report on nail salons last year, it was anything but a frivolous task.
The policy report, “How Safe is Your Nail Salon?,” released in September, took a look at health and safety practices for both consumers and workers in New York City’s nail salons.
And with more than 2,000 businesses licensed to do manicures and pedicures in the city alone, the health of a large swath of the public is affected. In New York, the salons are regulated by the state — which has just 27 inspectors to help maintain their safety, James told The Nation’s Health.
The health and wellness of nail salon employees is no small matter, as the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated there were 86,900 manicurists and pedicurists in the U.S. in 2012. That number is expected to rise to 100,400 by 2022.
But that estimate is probably far too low, according to the California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative, which estimates there are 97,100 manicurists in California alone right now.
Up to 80 percent of those workers are Vietnamese immigrants, and more than 50 percent are women of reproductive age.
Duyen Tran, MPH, an APHA member and the interim outreach coordinator for the collaborative, says there are several reasons that nail salon work appeals to young women in the Vietnamese community.
Some of it is the flexibility working in a nail salon can afford: Employees can tailor their schedules around their families’ needs. Another reason is the ease with which a worker can enter into the industry and start making money. Training courses, which are 12 to 18 months long, and exams are offered in Vietnamese.
“To do nail salon work you don’t need high English proficiency,” Tran told The Nation’s Health. “It doesn’t require intensive English training, so it’s really an opportunity for this recent immigrant population to enter the workforce and use it to support their families and communities in a very short time.”
But joining the workforce means exposure to known dangerous products — and potentially unknown dangers, as well.
Three chemicals pose most risks to workers
The biggest risks to nail salon workers are “the toxic trio:” Toluene, formaldehyde and dibutyl phthalate are the most common and dangerous ingredients in nail products, including polish and polish remover, that have been linked to serious health risks.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, toluene exposure has been linked to tiredness, confusion, weakness, drunken-type actions, memory loss, nausea, loss of appetite and hearing and color vision loss. High levels of exposure have been linked to kidney damage.
Formaldehyde exposure can lead to irritation of the eyes, nose and throat, causing tearing, and skin irritation, according to CDC, and is a known carcinogen. CDC’s Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry notes that dibutyl phthalate is linked to organ development issues in fetuses when exposed during gestation.
The toxic trio can be transmitted as airborne particles, through product contact with skin or eyes and via unintentional transfer of the materials to uncovered food, drink or cigarettes, according to research from the California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has reported that chemical levels can exceed 826 parts per million during the application of acrylics in nail salons, but proper ventilation can drop that to 12.4 parts per million.
Despite these risks, in Nails Magazine’s 2014-15 report, “Nails Big Book: Everything You Need to Know About the Nail Industry,” 34 percent of nail salon workers reported that they never wear protective gloves while working. Sixty-one percent said they never wear a mask while working. And more than half reported having work-related health concerns. Twenty-three percent said they were uninsured.
Salons can promote safety for workers
Though self-reported low numbers of nail salon workers take safety precautions, state and federal government regulations require certain steps to be taken to ensure worker safety. OSHA distributes “Stay Healthy and Safe While Giving Manicures and Pedicures: A Guide for Nail Salon Workers,” which outlines workers’ rights to health and safety for both employees and salon owners.
The guide has been translated to Vietnamese, Spanish and Korean. And OSHA has been working to reach out to communities to make sure workers’ rights are well-known, said Mandy Edens, MSPH, director of OSHA’s directorate for technical support and emergency management.
Source: The Nation’s Health; The article has been edited for length.
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Hair stylists who use certain products may harm their health.
NEW YORK – All a receptionist at Salon Zoë hair salon wanted to do was make her fellow employees aware of health hazards associated with products containing formaldehyde that were regularly used by haircutters and stylists at the business in the Riverdale section of the Bronx.
Her employer responded by firing her.
As a result, the U.S. Department of Labor is suing the business and its owner, Kristina Veljovic, for discrimination, and seeking redress and compensation for the worker who exercised her rights under the Occupational Safety and Health Act.
“This firing was illegal and inexcusable,” said Robert Kulick, regional administrator in New York for the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
“It’s against the law to fire or otherwise retaliate against an employee for informing colleagues about possible health hazards in their place of employment. Such behavior not only intimidates workers, it also can deny them access to knowledge that will protect them against workplace hazards.”
The suit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York says the worker began to experience respiratory distress in December 2011, including difficulty breathing and an impaired sense of smell. She sought medical attention on multiple occasions over the next several months. During this period, she also told her employer that she believed the salon’s hair-straightening products, which contain formaldehyde, were causing her health problems.
On June 27, 2012, she informed fellow employees of the presence of formaldehyde in the salon’s products and provided several co-workers with copies of an OSHA fact sheet* detailing the dangers of formaldehyde exposure.
Two days later, Kristina Veljovic terminated her employment. In July 2012, a physician confirmed that the worker’s respiratory distress resulted from her formaldehyde exposure at work. She subsequently filed an antidiscrimination complaint with OSHA, which investigated and found merit to her complaint.
“No employee should be fired for raising awareness of a potential workplace health hazard,” said Jeffrey Rogoff, the regional Solicitor of Labor in New York. “Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act, the Labor Department has the authority to file suit against employers who retaliate against employees and it will do so when the case warrants. This is clearly one of those cases.”
The department’s lawsuit asks the court to affirm the discrimination charge and permanently prohibit the defendants from illegally retaliating against employees in the future.
It also seeks payment of lost wages as well as compensatory, punitive and emotional distress damages to the employee, an offer of reinstatement with full benefits and seniority and the removal of all references to the matter in the worker’s employment records.
It would also require the employer to prominently post a notice that she will not discriminate against employees.
In a related action, OSHA’s Tarrytown Area Office conducted an inspection of Salon Zoe and cited the company in December 2012 for lack of a chemical hazard communication program and for not providing the salon’s employees with information and training on formaldehyde and other hazardous chemicals.
OSHA enforces the whistleblower* provisions of the OSH Act and 21 other statutes protecting employees who report violations of various airline, commercial motor carrier, consumer product, environmental, financial reform, food safety, health care reform, nuclear, pipeline, worker safety, public transportation agency, maritime and securities laws.
Employers are prohibited from retaliating against employees who raise various protected concerns or provide protected information to the employer or to the government.
Employees who believe that they have been retaliated against for engaging in protected conduct may file a complaint with the secretary of labor to request an investigation by OSHA’s Whistleblower Protection Program. Detailed information on employee whistleblower rights, including fact sheets, is available here.
Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, employers are responsible for providing safe and healthful workplaces for their employees. OSHA’s role is to ensure these conditions for America’s working men and women by setting and enforcing standards, and providing training, education and assistance.
Source: OSHA
Remove dangerous chemicals in salons and spas
Hair salons, beauty centers and spas often use products that can contain and emit harmful chemicals and fumes.
Electrocorp’s CleanBreeze 3 was designed for beauty salons and spas
These substances can affect worker health and well-being, especially after long-term exposure.
Electrocorp has designed a wide range of air cleaners for the hair styling and beauty industry, which help remove harmful fumes, chemicals, particles, odors and other contaminants from the ambient air.
Other air purifiers, such as Electrocorp’s CleanBreeze3, comes with a source capture attachment that can be positioned close to the head where the treatment is being used and helps remove harmful chemicals such as formaldehyde before they spread.
For more information and a free consultation, contact Electrocorp by calling 1-866-667-0297 or writing to sales@electrocorp.net.
Bar tending and waitressing (especially in smoky environments) can affect your lungs.
Your lungs work hard. Most adults take more than 20,000 breaths a day. But just how well your lungs do their job may be affected by the job you do.
Chemicals. Germs. Tobacco smoke and dirt. Fibers, dust, and even things you might not think are dangerous can damage your airway and threaten your lungs.
“The lungs are complex organs,” says Philip Harber, MD, MPH, professor of public health at the University of Arizona in Tucson. “Occupational and environmental exposures can lead to scarring or fibrosis, asthma, COPD, and infection or cancer.”
The good news: Many on-the-job lung dangers are preventable. Depending on your line of work, making certain changes can be key: Improve ventilation, wear protective equipment, change the way you do your work, and learn more about hazards, for examples.
Here are 10 jobs where precautions may help you avoid work-related lung damage.
1. Bartending and Waitressing
Secondhand smoke has been linked to lung cancer. It remains a threat to workers in cities where smoking hasn’t been banned in public places. Casino workers also can find themselves in a cloud of smoke.
No one’s going to wear a respirator while serving martinis or dealing a blackjack game. Separating smokers from nonsmokers, cleaning the air, and ventilating buildings won’t keep nonsmokers from being exposed.
Short of working to change policy, the best solution may be to find another job.
“Unfortunately, the individual worker has limited options,” says Susanna Von Essen, MD. She’s a University of Nebraska Medical Center professor of internal medicine in the division of pulmonary, critical care, sleep, and allergy.
2. Housekeeping and Cleaning
Some cleaning supplies, even so-called “green” or “natural” products, have harmful chemicals that have been linked with developing asthma.
“Cleaners are reactive chemicals, meaning that they react with dirt and also with your lung tissues,” Von Essen says.
Some release volatile organic compounds, which can contribute to chronic respiratory problems and allergic reactions. Read labels and follow instructions.
Consider using “simple cleaning agents like vinegar and water or baking soda,” Von Essen says. Open windows and doors to keep the area well ventilated, too.
3. Health Care
Doctors, nurses, and other people who work in hospitals, medical offices, or nursing homes are at increased risk for lung diseases such as tuberculosis, influenza, and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).
So, health care workers should keep up with immunizations (including the flu vaccine) that the CDC recommends for them.
Health care workers may also develop asthma if latex is used in gloves or other supplies. Latex-free synthetic gloves are an alternative.
Hair stylists who use certain products may harm their health.
4. Hair Styling
Certain hair-coloring agents can lead to occupational asthma. Some salon hair-straightening products contain formaldehyde, a known carcinogen. It’s also a strong eye, nose, throat, and lung irritant.
Good ventilation is important. Because wearing a respirator might cause appointments to cancel, know what’s in the products you’re working with. If they’re not safe, find a safer product.
5. Manufacturing
Some factory workers risk getting asthma or making their existing asthma worse. Asthma not caused by work but made worse by it affects as many as 25% of adults with asthma, Harber says.
Factory workers can be exposed to everything from inhaled metals in foundries to silica or fine sand, which can lead to silicosis, a disease that scars the lung, or increased risk of lung cancer.
A lung disorder called “popcorn lung,” or bronchiolitis obliterans, has been seen in plant workers exposed to some of the flavoring chemicals used to make microwave popcorn. Again, respirators and proper ventilation are key for those workers. (No risk of “popcorn lung” has been seen in people who eat that popcorn.)
6. Construction
Workers who demolish old buildings or do remodeling can be exposed to asbestos used as insulation around pipes or in floor tiles.
Even minimal exposure to its microscopic fibers has been linked to a variety of problems. One is mesothelioma, a form of cancer, Von Essen says.
Exposure also seems to raise the risk of small-cell lung cancer and can lead to asbestosis, or scarring of the lung. Removal should be left to trained and licensed crews.
“Know where the asbestos is,” Von Essen says. “Follow all the rules and don’t take chances.”
7. Farming
Working with crops and animals can lead to several disorders. Hypersensitivity pneumonitis is a rare but serious problem caused by repeated exposures to mold-contaminated grain or hay. The lung’s air sacs become inflamed and may develop scar tissue.
Grain in metal bins can get moldy. Breathing dust from this grain can lead to fevers, chills, and a flu-like illness called “organic dust toxic syndrome.” Farmers also are more likely to report a cough and chest tightness.
“We think about 30% of farmers who grow crops in this way have had that at some point,” Von Essen says. Workers in hog and chicken barns sometimes get an asthma-like syndrome.
“Dust and ammonia levels together seem to be risk factors,” she says. Keep grain from getting damp, ensure adequate ventilation, and wear a respirator.
8. Auto Body Spray Painting
People who work in auto body shops are often exposed to chemicals known as isocyanates. They’re a significant cause of occupational asthma.
“It’s frequently a career-ending disease where they need to leave their profession,” Harber says.
Using quality respirators that are appropriate for your task can lessen the risk. It also helps to enclose the area being sprayed and to have a ventilated exhaust system. Better yet, replace hazardous materials with safer ones.
9. Firefighting
Firefighters are exposed to toxic chemicals that may affect their health.
Photo: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
People who battle blazes are exposed not only to the fire, but also to other materials, including burning plastics and chemicals. Firefighters can significantly lower their risk of lung disease and other problems by using a “self-contained breathing apparatus” (SCBA). These devices should also be used during “mop up” or the clean-up period.
“Many of the chemicals are still in the air,” Harber says. Ventilation also is critical.
10. Coal Mining
Underground miners are at risk for everything from bronchitis to pneumoconiosis, or “black lung.” It’s a chronic condition caused by inhaling coal dust that becomes embedded in the lungs, causing them to harden and make breathing very hard.
“This can cause progressive massive fibrosis and can kill people,” Von Essen says.
Again, protective equipment can limit the amount of dust inhaled.
Source: WebMD
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