The American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) selected Thomas Connor, research biologist in the NIOSH Division of Applied Research and Technology, as the recipient of the Society's 2008 award for a non-pharmacist's contribution to pharmacy. The award recognizes Tom's and NIOSH's leadership in recommending ways to prevent occupational exposures to hazardous drugs in health-care settings. NIOSH's recommendations for preventing occupational exposures to hazardous drugs in health-care settings are available at http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/hazdrug.

The last day to submit posters to the NORA Symposium 2008 is this Friday, March 7, 2008. http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/nora/symp08/callforposters.html

Registration Open NORA Symposium 2008

Registration is open for the NORA Symposium 2008: Public Market for Ideas and Partnerships, July 29 in Denver Colorado. Limited student scholarships are available for those who qualify. For more information or to register click on "registration" in the right-hand menu on http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/nora/symp08/default.html.

NORA Services Sector Council Draft Agenda

The NORA Services Sector Council has posted draft goals for the National Services Sector Agenda at http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/nora/councils/serv. The Council members and corresponding members have been working on the agenda over the past year to develop a set of 15 strategic goals to guide the nation in research and research-to-practice efforts in 10 sub-sectors. In addition, sector-wide goals were developed for musculoskeletal disorders and surveillance. The Council requests comments from stakeholders on these draft goals. Look for the link "Comment on Draft Sector Agendas" in the right-hand menu on http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/nora.

NIOSH is partnering with the American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) and the American Institute of Physics (AIP) to provide content for AIP's Discoveries and Breakthroughs in Science video news service. Three segments showcasing NIOSH projects are available for viewing at the external links below.

* NIOSH research to develop a cooling suit to reduce fire fighters' risk of heat stress http://www.aip.org/dbis/stories/2008/18017.html

* NIOSH's unique mine roof simulator for understanding and addressing the forces that cause mine roof collapse http://www.aip.org/dbis/stories/2008/18014.html

* NIOSH research to develop a system for monitoring fire fighters' vital signs http://www.aip.org/dbis/stories/2008/18019.html

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Hyatt Regency Crystal City Hotel and Resort

2799 Jefferson Davis Highway

Arlington, VA 22202

From 8:30AM – 5:00PM

(703) 418-1234

NIOSH has developed strategic research and partnership goals to address important issues surrounding the health and safety of emergency responders. The conference will provide an overview of this research portfolio and will solicit public comments regarding priorities of the strategic goals. For more information on these strategic goals, visit http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/programs/epr/goals.html. For information on conference registration, please visit our Web site at http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/programs/epr/townhall.html.

Work Life logo Deadline is 5:00PM ET on March 19, 2008.

There is still time to submit public comments to the NIOSH Docket (#132) on a new resource document intended to facilitate the development of workplace programs, policies, and practices to sustain and improve workforce health: Essential Elements of Effective Workplace Programs and Policies for Improving Worker Health and Wellbeing. The development and dissemination of these elements as a useful tool is a key effort of the NIOSH Work Life Initiative, http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/worklife. You may find instructions for submitting comments at http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/review/public/132.

NIOSH is soliciting applications for the 2007 NIOSH Director's Award for Outstanding Extramural Research in Occupational Safety and Health. This annual award recognizes outstanding scientific research achievement in the field of occupational safety and health that has made a major impact or has the potential of making a major impact for practitioners and workplaces. Researchers who are currently receiving independent investigator-initiated grant support from NIOSH are eligible for the competitive award, which provides a $15,000 supplement in total costs to the grant that is the basis for the work cited in the award. Go to the NIOSH Web page at http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/oep for the full announcement.

NIOSH will provide free, confidential health screening to working underground coal miners in 16 counties throughout West Virginia this year to provide early detection of coal workers’ pneumoconiosis, also known as “black lung.” The screenings will be provided through the state-of-the-art NIOSH mobile testing van at convenient community locations April 7 – 19, 2008. Information about the NIOSH screening program can be found at http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/surveillance/ORDS/ecwhsp.html or by calling 888-480-4042.

In the February 23 issue of The Economist, an article looks thoughtfully at the implications of today’s wave of Hispanic immigration. As the article notes, the demographic shift from this influx is no longer confined to a handful of cities and states, such as my own home state of California. It is transforming whole sections of the country, with profound impact on industry and the economy. The article, “The Newest Frontier,” is posted online at http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10727883.

How will the tide of Hispanic and other immigration shape the future? A new report from the Pew Research Center, issued February 11, suggests some answers, based on continuation of current trends. For example, the study predicts that the nation’s foreign-born population, now 36 million, will more than double in size to 81 million by 2050. Forty-two years from now, nearly one in five Americans will be a foreign-born immigrant, up from one in eight now.

We know that immigrants are at elevated risk for work-related injury, illness, and death for a variety of reasons, including disproportionately high employment in jobs that are more likely to pose risks, and language barriers that complicate safety and health training. The forecast in the Pew report reinforces the wisdom of taking steps now to address these risk factors and to craft solutions. Clearly, if unchecked, the problem will only become greater and more consuming in the coming decades, with serious implications for safety, family and community stability, and economic productivity into the next half-century.

NIOSH has worked closely with diverse partners to identify, understand, and meet the safety and health needs of the changing work force. In 1999, with commendable foresight, NIOSH and its stakeholders met in a national conference to define the challenges for safety and health training to serve the increasingly diverse workforce of the 21st Century, including non-English-speaking populations. The report from that conference is available as a NIOSH numbered document at http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/2004-132.

The needs outlined in that report have informed NIOSH’s subsequent research and outreach in relation to immigrant workers, notably the rapidly growing Hispanic immigrant population. To help fill a gap for meaningful, culturally appropriate training materials for Hispanic workers and their employers, NIOSH has worked with outside colleagues to develop bilingual educational documents for protecting worker safety and health in industries with a high proportion of men and women whose first language is Spanish. For example, Silicosis - El trabajo con tejas de cemento: el peligro de la sílice recommends controls and good work practices for reducing roofers’ exposures to silica dust, http://www.cdc.gov/spanish/niosh/docs/2006-110sp.html. Soluciones Simples: Ergonomía Para Trabajadores Agrícolas offers practical, cost-effective solutions for preventing painful and potentially disabling musculoskeletal injuries among farm workers, http://www.cdc.gov/spanish/niosh/docs/01-111pd-sp.html. Our Web page en espanõl serves as a portal for our stakeholders whose first language is Spanish, http://www.cdc.gov/spanish/niosh.

Another interesting prediction from the Pew study: the U.S. elderly population will more than double in size through 2050 – the result of the baby boomers entering what the report calls the traditional retirement years. If current employment trends continue, many of these men and women 65 or older will still be on the job, either part-time or full-time. Their safety and health needs will be different in many ways from those of younger workers, as an expert committee of the National Academies noted in a study conducted at NIOSH’s request, Health and Safety Needs of Older Workers, available at http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=10884. Occupational safety and health issues for older workers are a focus of collaborative research under NIOSH’s program on work organization, http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/programs/workorg/emerging.html.

At the same time, other working men and women will follow the traditional retirement path – including occupational safety and health professionals, beginning over the next decade with those of my generation who entered their careers in the 1970s and early 1980s. It will be critically necessary to have in place a next generation of dedicated men and women to carry on the vital work that we do, and a next generation after that. Recruitment, professional development, continuing education, and mentoring will be more important than ever before. Support for high quality training and education through NIOSH’s Education and Research Centers and training grants programs has always been a mainstay of our field, and will become more so in the foreseeable future.

The Pew Research Center report, “Immigration to Play Lead Role in Future U.S. Growth: U.S. Population Projections: 2005-2050,” by Jeffrey S. Passel and D’Vera Cohn, is available online at http://pewresearch.org/pubs/729/united-states-population-projections. While NIOSH does not have a “Project 2050” per se, our partnerships through the National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA) are all based on the reality that shaping the future for the better begins today. Further information on NORA can be found at http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/nora. If you are not already one of our NORA partners, I invite you to join us.

Journal of Occupational Health Psychology the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology publishes research, theory, and public policy articles in occupational health psychology, an interdisciplinary field representing a broad range of backgrounds, interests, and specializations. Occupational health psychology concerns the application of psychology to improving the quality of work life and to protecting and promoting the safety, health, and well-being of workers. The Journal has a threefold focus on the work environment, the individual and the work family interface. The Journal seeks scholarly articles, from both researchers and practitioners, concerning psychological factors in relationship to all aspects of occupational health. Included in this broad domain of interest are articles in which work-related psychological factors play a role in the etiology of health problems, articles examining the psychological and associated health consequences of work, and articles concerned with the use of psychological approaches to prevent or mitigate occupational health problems. Special attention is given to articles with a prevention emphasis. Manuscripts dealing with issues of contemporary relevance to the workplace, especially with regard to minority, cultural, or occupationally underrepresented groups, or topics at the interface of the family and the workplace are encouraged. Each article should represent an addition to knowledge and understanding of occupational health psychology.

University of Nottingham

The Occupational Health Psychology Group is managed by Dr. Amanda Griffiths and Professor Tom Cox. It is generally concerned with psychosocial and organizational issues in occupational and environmental health, and has particular interests in relation to work stress and related organizational level interventions, risk management for work stress, musculoskeletal disorders, the measurement and management of absence, and aging, work and health.

Charles J. Holahan, Ph.D., and James W. Pennebaker, Ph.D., are directing the development and implementation of an Occupational Health Psychology (OHP) training track in the Department of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. The OHP training track has four components: 1) a Seminar in Occupational Health Psychology, 2) a Research Practicum in Occupational Health Psychology, 3) an Intervention Practicum in Occupational Health Psychology, and 4) an interdisciplinary minor in Occupational Health Psychology. Students completing the OHP training track are graduate students in the Department of Psychology, typically in the Clinical or Social Psychology Programs.