Author Interviews, CDC, Exercise - Fitness, Occupational Health / 03.07.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Alberto J. Caban-Martinez, DO, PhD MPH, CPH Assistant Professor, Department of Public Health Sciences, Division of Environment & Public Health Associate Director, Miami Occupational Research Group Director, Musculoskeletal Disorders and Occupational Health Lab University of Miami MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Obesity remains one the largest public health burdens in the United States. Strategies that support healthy nutrition, physical activity and well-being are needed to achieve our national goals of Healthy People 2020. Opportunities for physical activity in the workplace are limited. As our U.S. economy moves from a blue-collar manufacturing enterprise to an increasingly service and information producing workforce, sedentary behavior at the worksite has unfortunately increased. Long work hours seated, short paths to printing or conference room meetings can be leading to increased overweight and obesity workforce trends documented in the U.S. population. Our University of Miami, occupational health and safety research team(www.CabanMartinezLAB.com) developed and evaluated a Walking Meeting (WaM) protocol for white-collar job site using input from thought leaders, key stakeholders, and the scientific and grey literature. We pilot tested the feasibility, acceptability and implementation of the WaM protocol in small group of white collar workers at a large university center. We found that converting just one seated meeting per week at work into a walking meeting increased the work-related physical activity levels of workers by 10 minutes. This increase in physical activity also supports the American Heart Association's recommendations of 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity physical activity for adults, or about 30 minutes each weekday. (more…)
Author Interviews, NEJM, Occupational Health, Opiods / 24.06.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Professor Ellen Meara, PhD Professor The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Responding to a fourfold rise in death rates, between 2006 and 2012, states collectively enacted 81 laws restricting prescribing and dispensing of prescription opioids. Jill Horwitz, PhD, JD, said “states hoped passing a range of laws might help. So they are enacting small fixes — forbidding patients from “doctor-shopping,” and requiring doctors to use tamper-resistant prescription forms. They are also implementing major efforts such as prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs) — online databases that allow law enforcement and clinicians to monitor prescriptions.” (more…)
Author Interviews, Circadian Rhythm, Endocrinology, Lifestyle & Health, Occupational Health, Sleep Disorders, Stroke / 02.06.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: David Earnest, Ph.D. Professor in the Department of Neuroscience and Experimental Therapeutics Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Earnest: When body clocks are disrupted, as they are when people engage in shift work or go to bed and get up at radically different times every few days, more severe ischemic strokes can result. MedicalResearch.com: What should readers take away from your report? Dr. Earnest:  Whenever possible, go to bed and get up at the same time each day and keep regular mealtimes. If you do need to keep an irregular schedule, it is especially important to be mindful of stroke risk and try especially hard to eliminate other risk factors, such as hypertension and obesity. (more…)
Author Interviews, CDC, Hearing Loss, Occupational Health / 06.05.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Elizabeth A. Masterson, PhD CPH Dr. Masterson is an epidemiologist in the NIOSH Division of Surveillance, Hazard Evaluations and Field Studies CDC MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Masterson: Occupational hearing loss, primarily caused by high noise exposure, is the most common work-related illness in the United States. It is a permanent but entirely preventable condition. Researchers from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), a part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, compared the prevalence of hearing impairment within nine industry sectors and the associated impact on quality of life for noise-exposed workers. Hearing impairment is hearing loss that impacts day-to-day activities. The Mining sector had the highest prevalence of workers with any hearing impairment, and with moderate or worse impairment, followed by the Construction and Manufacturing sectors. Impact on quality of life was measured by calculating disability-adjusted life years (DALYs). DALYs represented the number of healthy years lost because of hearing impairment. This study found that 2.5 healthy years were lost each year for every 1,000 noise-exposed U.S. workers because of hearing impairment. These lost years of good health were shared among the 13% of workers with hearing impairment (about 130 workers out of each 1,000 workers). Mining, Construction and Manufacturing workers lost more healthy years than workers in other industry sectors (3.5, 3.1 and 2.7 healthy years lost, respectively, each year for every 1,000 workers). Mild impairment accounted for 52% of all healthy years lost and moderate impairment accounted for 27%.  (more…)
AHA Journals, Author Interviews, Occupational Health, Radiology / 20.04.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Maria Grazia Andreassi, PhD Director, Genetics Research Unit, CNR Institute of Clinical Physiology Pisa, Italy MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Over the last 20 years, advances in imaging technology have led to an explosive growth and performance of fluoroscopically-guided cardiovascular procedures, highly effective and often life-saving. However, these procedures requires substantial radiation exposure (e.g. the average effective radiation dose for a percutaneous coronary intervention or an ablation procedure is about 15 mSv, equal to 750 chest x-rays or ~6 years of background radiation) to patients and staff, especially interventional cardiologists and electrophysiologists. In fact, interventional cardiologists and electrophysiologists needs to operate near the patient and the radiation source and accumulate significant lifetime radiation exposure over a long career. The potential hazards of cumulative radiation exposure are the risk of cataract development and cancer induction. Anyway, there is now growing evidence in scientific community of an excess risk for other non-cancer disease even at moderate and low dose levels of ionizing radiation exposure, especially cardiovascular disease and cognitive effects. However, the characterization of health risks of accumulated low-dose radiation is incomplete and largely lacking. Therefore, the purpose of our study was to examine the prevalence of health problems among personnel staff working in interventional cardiology/cardiac electrophysiology and correlate them with the length of occupational radiation exposure. (more…)
Author Interviews, CDC, Occupational Health, Toxin Research / 24.10.2015

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Geoffrey M. Calvert MD Division of Surveillance, Hazard Evaluations, and Field Studies National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health CDC Cincinnati, Ohio Medical Research: What is the background for this study? Dr. Calvert: Since 1987, acute occupational pesticide-related illness and injury has been one of the conditions under surveillance by NIOSH. NIOSH supports these surveillance activities by providing cooperative agreement funding and technical support to state health departments. The SENSOR-Pesticides program is also partially funded by EPA. A total of 12 states currently participate in the SENSOR-Pesticides program. With the 2015 publication of the Summary of Notifiable Non-Infectious Conditions and Disease Outbreaks – United States, official statistics for the occurrence of acute occupational pesticide-related illness and injury were published for the first time in the same volume of the MMWR with information on nationally notifiable infectious diseases. (more…)
Accidents & Violence, Author Interviews, Occupational Health / 24.10.2015

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Matthew S. Thiese, PhD, MSPH Assistant Professor Rocky Mountain Center for Occupational and Environmental Health University of Utah School of Medicine Medical Research: What is the background for this study? Dr. Thiese: The nearly 3 million truck drivers in the United States face many challenges including a lack of physical activity, limited healthy food choices, work-related stress, high physical job demands of loading and unloading trucks and a high risk of being involved in crashes. The purpose of the study was to describe truck driver health and assess relationships between both personal and occupational factors and risk of being involved in a crash. This is why it is important to get yourself checked out by a doctor before carrying out any activity involving being on the road. Depending on your job, you can be driving for a long period of time and it is most likely that you'll become tired. A tired driver being a wheel is at a high risk of being involved in an accident. If you are soon to visit your local doctor for any problems you may have, it may be good to look into something like jj keller eld reviews to give you another way of staying safe on the roads and to help you prevent any accidents that could occur. The main thing for anyone to do before driving is checking they are physically fit to get behind the wheel. The next step though is to make sure that you can actually drive a truck. There are loads of places that you can training from, for example, you could just check out a website like MyCDLTraining.com to help you learn how to drive a truck. Medical Research: What are the main findings? Dr. Thiese: There were many personal and occupational factors that were significantly related to being involved in a crash. Among the personal factors assessed, drivers were more likely to be involved in a crash if they used a cell phone regularly, drank alcohol regularly, had a prior diagnosis of heart problems, reported snoring at night, had low back pain in the past year and if they had a high pulse pressure, which is the difference between the systolic and diastolic measures and is indicative of cardiovascular disease. Occupational factors related to being involved in a crash included how long subjects had been a commercial truck driver and how physically exhausted they felt after work; drivers reporting higher physical exhaustion were more likely to be involved in a crash. If you have been involved in a crash check out an Atlanta Truck Accident Lawyer. (more…)
Author Interviews, BMJ, Cancer Research, Occupational Health / 21.10.2015

MedicalResearch.com Interview with:, David Richardson PhD Associate Professor Epidemiology Gillings School of Global Public Health UNC Medical Research: What is the background for this study? Dr. Richardson:  The International Nuclear Workers Study (INWORKS) combines three cohorts from France, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America. INWORKS follows on from an earlier 15-Country Study but focuses on the three countries that provided the majority of the most informative data on early nuclear workers (1940’s onward). The use of data from just 3 countries, instead of 15, reduces the organisational requirements – and therefore financial burden – associated with the greater number of countries but the cohort selection (of the three main contributing countries) means that the power of the INWORKS study is not a concern. INWORKS uses information from the French, UK and US cohorts that has been updated since the 15-Country study was published. The overall purpose of the study is to improve the understanding of health risks associated with protracted, low-level exposure to ionising radiation. (more…)
Author Interviews, Cancer Research, CDC, Occupational Health / 24.09.2015

Robert D. Daniels Ph.D Division of Surveillance, Hazard Evaluations, and Field Studies National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Cincinnati, OhioMedicalResearch.com Interview with: Robert D. Daniels Ph.D Division of Surveillance, Hazard Evaluations, and Field Studies National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Cincinnati, Ohio Medical Research: What is the background for this study? Dr. Daniels: In 2010, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) researchers, with funding assistance from the U.S. Fire Administration, launched a multi-year study to examine whether fire fighters have a higher risk of cancer and other causes of death due to job exposures. Our study was designed to address limitations of previous fire fighter cancer research. ? We included a significantly larger population. With more than 30,000 career fire fighters who served in Chicago, Philadelphia, and San Francisco Fire Departments between 1950 and 2010, it is the largest study of United States fire fighters ever undertaken. In addition, both non-white and female fire fighters are represented. ? We looked not only at deaths from cancer, but also at the diagnosis of certain kinds of cancer, such as testicular and prostate cancer, which have higher survival rates. We also examined other causes of death to better understand the risk for various cancers and illnesses among fire fighters compared to the general public. ? We also examined the relation between cancer and several proxies of exposure, such as the number of fire runs, time spent at fires, and duration of employment of each firefighter (Dahm et al. 2015). The study was conducted in two parts. The first part was aimed to answer the question: “Is cancer associated with firefighting?” by comparing firefighter cancer risk to that of the general population. The second part focused on the question: “Are higher-exposed firefighters more at risk?” Findings from both parts have been published in the journal, Occupational and Environmental Medicine (Daniels et al. 2014, 2015). (more…)
Author Interviews, BMJ, Hearing Loss, Heart Disease, Occupational Health / 20.09.2015

Wenqi Gan, MD, PhD Assistant Professor Department of Preventive Medicine and Environmental Health University of Kentucky College of Public Health Lexington, KY 40536MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Wenqi Gan, MD, PhD Assistant Professor Department of Preventive Medicine and Environmental Health University of Kentucky College of Public Health Lexington, KY 40536 Medical Research: What is the background for this study? Dr. Wenqi Gan: In epidemiologic studies on health effects of noise exposure, community noise is typically assessed using noise prediction models, occupational noise is assessed using self-reports or historical records. These methods are able to estimate community noise exposure in residential areas and occupational noise exposure in the workplace; however, these methods are not able to accurately reflect actual personal noise exposure in the home and workplace. The lack of personal noise exposure information is a major limitation of previous studies, which could cause underestimations of the true health effects of noise exposure. Bilateral high-frequency hearing loss, an objective indicator for long-term exposure to loud noise, may be used to investigate health effects of noise exposure. Medical Research: What are the main findings? Dr. Wenqi Gan: This study includes 5223 people aged 20-69 years who participated in the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 1999-2004. Compared with people with normal high-frequency hearing, people with bilateral high-frequency hearing loss were approximately two times more likely to have coronary heart disease. This association was particularly striking for people who were chronically exposed to loud noise in the workplace or leisure time. For example, for currently employed workers with occupational noise exposure history, the possibility of having coronary heart disease increased more than four times. This study confirms that chronic exposure to loud noise is associated with increased risk of coronary heart disease. (more…)
Author Interviews, CHEST, Occupational Health, Pulmonary Disease / 08.09.2015

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Metin Akgun, MD, FCCP Department of Pulmonary Medicine Atatürk University, Faculty of Medicine Erzurum, Turkey Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Akgun: The first cases of silicosis due to denim sandblasting were reported in 2005. In 2007, we evaluated 145 former male denim sandblasters who had an exposure history to at least 1 month with a latency period at least ten months; 77 (53%) were diagnosed as silicosis according to the profusion category of opacities of 1/0 or greater. In this study, we reported 4-year follow-up results of this cohort. Out of 83 sandblasters who were evaluated in this follow-up study, nine died and of the remaining 74, 96% had radiographic evidence of silicosis based on the same criteria and 66% had pulmonary function loss, which was defined as at least 12% or more decrease on FVC, predicted. (more…)
Author Interviews, BMJ, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Fertility, Nursing, Occupational Health / 08.08.2015

Dr. Audrey J Gaskins Department of Nutrition Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Boston, MAMedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Audrey J Gaskins Department of Nutrition Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Boston, MA Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Gaskins: Previous studies have linked shift work, long working hours, and physical factors to an increased risk of menstrual cycle disturbances, spontaneous abortion, preterm birth, and low birth weight; however the association with fecundity is inconsistent. Several papers have also reviewed the occupational exposures of health care workers and concluded that reproductive health issues are a concern. Therefore we sought to determine the extent to which work schedules and physical factors were associated with fecundity in a large cohort of nurses. Women who work in an industry that requires them to work from a height or even lift heavy objects requires them to undertake training which guides them though the effective stages on how to work safely at heights. Without the right training, this sort of work can become very dangerous. Our main findings were that that working >40 hours per week and moving or lifting a heavy load >15 times per day (including repositioning or transferring patients) were associated with reduced fecundity in our cohort of female nurses planning pregnancy. However, all other factors such as frequency of night work, duration of rotating and non-rotating night shifts, and time spent walking or standing at work were not significantly associated with fecundity in this cohort. (more…)
Author Interviews, Memory, Occupational Health, Sleep Disorders / 14.07.2015

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jonathan Cedernaes M.D., Ph.D. Department of Neuroscience Uppsala University SwedenJonathan Cedernaes M.D., Ph.D. Department of Neuroscience Uppsala University Sweden Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Cedernaes: Sleep is known to facilitate the formation of long-term memory in humans, by transferring newly learned memories from short-term to long-term memory stores. Studies however indicate that even shorter periods of sleep - including naps - can ensure access to different types of memories under normal restful conditions. Furthermore, while some studies have shown that acute sleep loss can exacerbate e.g. physiological responses to acute stress, it it has not been studied whether shortened sleep in combination with acute cognitive stress can have a negative impact on the retrieval of newly learned memories. With this background in mind, we conducted a study where we aimed to investigate how nocturnal sleep duration impacts this memory transfer, and to what extent long-term memories formed by sleep remain accessible after acute cognitive stress. We recruited 15 participants who in each of two sessions first underwent a learning session in the evening, during which they learned 15 card pair locations on a computer screen. Then, in one of the two experimental session, subjects slept for half a night (4-hr), instead being able to sleep for a full night (8-hr) in the other session. On the morning after each sleep condition, we had the subjects try to recall as many card pair locations as possible. We found that following half a night of sleep (4-hr), participants were equally able to recall memories for the learned card pair locations, as after a full night of sleep (8-hr). However, we also showed that the ability to retrieve memories following 30 minutes of acute stress, in the morning after these two sleep conditions, was different depending on whether the participants had slept for 8 or 4 hours. Following short sleep, the 30-min long stress exposure reduced the participants' ability to recall the card pair locations that the participants had learned the previous night by around 10%. In contrast, no such stress-induced memory impairment was observed when the same men were allowed to sleep for a full night. (more…)
Author Interviews, Lancet, Leukemia, Lymphoma, Occupational Health / 01.07.2015

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr Klervi Leuraud, Epidemiologist Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety Cedex, France MedicalResearch: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Leuraud: INWORKS was performed to quantify the risk of cancer mortality associated to protracted low doses of ionizing radiation typical of occupational or environmental exposures, as well as of diagnostic medical exposures. While such risks are well known for acute exposures as those experienced by the Japanese survivors of the A-bombs, there is still a lack of information for exposures experienced by the workers and the public. Our study confirms the existence of an association between leukemia mortality and chronic exposure to low doses received by nuclear workers. (more…)
Author Interviews, CDC, Mental Health Research, Occupational Health / 21.05.2015

Dr. Hope M. Tiesman MSPH, PhD CDC, AtlantaMedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Hope M. Tiesman MSPH, PhD CDC, Atlanta Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Tiesman: The authors regularly monitor non-occupational injury trends, including the recent and significant increase in suicide rates. This finding led the authors to consider how these non-occupational trends impacted the workplace. We used data for two large national surveillance systems.  We obtained data on workplace suicides from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Census of Fatal Occupational Injury (CFOI) which compiles data on all fatal work-related injuries in the US.  We obtained data on non-workplace suicides from the CDC's Web-Based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System or WISQARS. WISQARS data are compiled using national death certificate data.  From here we calculated suicide rates and compared trends across workplace and non-workplace suicides as well as examined the socio-demographics and occupational characteristics of those who chose suicide in the workplace. Several important findings to highlight.  Across the 8-yr timeframe, we found that workplace suicide rates remained relatively stable, even somewhat decreasing that it is until 2007 when a large and significant jump in rates was found.  This was in contrast with non-workplace suicide rates which increased over the entire study period.  Men had signifıcantly higher workplace suicide rates compared to women and generally, as age increased, so did workplace suicide rates.  Those aged between 65 and 74 years had the highest suicide rate of all workers which was also a bit different from non-workplace suicide rates.  Finally, we found that those in protective service occupations, such as police and firefighters, had the highest workplace suicide rates, followed closely by those in farming/fishing/and forestry occupations.  These occupations have been associated with higher overall suicide rates in prior studies.  A somewhat novel finding was that those in automotive maintenance and repair occupations also had significantly higher workplace suicide rates. (more…)
Accidents & Violence, Author Interviews, CDC, Nursing, Occupational Health / 28.04.2015

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Ahmed Gomaa, MD, ScD, MSPH Medical Officer / Surveillance Branch Division of Surveillance Hazard Evaluation and Health Studies National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Medical Research: What is the background for this study? Dr. Gomaa:  In 2013, one in five reported nonfatal occupational injuries occurred among workers in the health care and social assistance industry, the highest number of such injuries reported for all private industries. In 2011, U.S. health care personnel experienced seven times the national rate of musculoskeletal disorders compared with all other private sector workers. To reduce the number of preventable injuries among health care personnel, CDC's National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), with collaborating partners, created the Occupational Health Safety Network (OHSN) to collect detailed injury data to help target prevention efforts. OHSN, a free, voluntary surveillance system for health care facilities, enables prompt and secure tracking of occupational injuries by type, occupation, location, and risk factors. (more…)
Author Interviews, Occupational Health, Orthopedics / 06.04.2015

Thomas Karakolis Department of Kinesiology University of Waterloo Waterloo, Ontario, CanadaMedicalResearch.com Interview with: Thomas Karakolis Department of Kinesiology University of Waterloo Waterloo, Ontario, Canada Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Major League Baseball (MLB) pitchers have an injury rate approaching 1 in 4, depending on the study you look at. As an occupational injury rate, this number is extremely high. In fact, I think you would be hard pressed to find another industry where the injury rate is that high. One way that coaches and managers in MLB are trying to lower the injury rate is to restrict the total 'workload' on pitchers per season. Particularly in young pitchers, many MLB organizations restrict the number of innings a pitcher can pitch based upon the number of innings they pitched the previous year. Essentially, they are using innings pitched as a surrogate for workload. If this is an effective strategy, you would expect a correlation between the increase in number of innings pitched between successive seasons and future injury. Our study found that no such correlation exists. Innings pitched does not appear to be a sensitive enough measure to asses the true workload a pitcher experiences throughout the season. (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Occupational Health, Toxin Research / 31.03.2015

Jorge E. Chavarro, M.D., Sc.D. Assistant Professor of Nutrition and Epidemiology Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Assistant Professor of Medicine Harvard Medical School Boston, MA 02113MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jorge E. Chavarro, M.D., Sc.D. Assistant Professor of Nutrition and Epidemiology Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Assistant Professor of Medicine Harvard Medical School Boston, MA 02113 Medical Research: What is the background for this study? Dr. Chavarro: Previous studies have shown that occupational exposure to pesticides is harmful to sperm production. However, whether the same is true for pesticide residues in our food, the most important source of exposure to pesticides for most people, is unclear. Medical Research: What are the main findings? Dr. Chavarro: Bottom line, men who consumed the greatest amounts of fruits and vegetables with large amounts of pesticide residues had significantly lower sperm counts and fewer morphologically normal sperm. (more…)
Author Interviews, Occupational Health, Sexual Health, Stanford / 09.03.2015

Michael L. Eisenberg, M.D. Director, Male Reproductive Medicine and Surgery Assistant Professor Department of Urology Stanford University School of MedicineMedicalResearch.com Interview with: Michael L. Eisenberg, M.D. Director, Male Reproductive Medicine and Surgery Assistant Professor Department of Urology Stanford University School of Medicine Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Eisenberg: There has been growing data that a man's overall health may impact his fertility. As such, we wanted to explore this link using the NICHD LIFE Study which has the unique ability to account for both health and work exposure in men with both normal and abnormal fertility. We found that certain aspects of a man's work and health can impact his semen parameters. (more…)
Author Interviews, Dermatology, Hand Washing, Occupational Health / 15.02.2015

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr Jill Stocks PhD, Research Fellow Centre for Occupational and Environmental Health, Centre for Epidemiology; NIHR Greater Manchester Primary Care Patient Safety Translational Research Centre, Centre for Primary Care Institute of Population Health, University of Manchester, UK. Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Stocks: Reducing healthcare-associated infections has been a priority in the UK over recent decades; and this has been reflected in interventions and guidelines focussing on improving hygiene procedures. During 2004 to 2008 the Cleanyourhands campaign promoted hand hygiene in all NHS trusts. There was anecdotal evidence from dermatologists and occupational physicians that irritant contact dermatitis was on the increase in healthcare workers, and that it was caused by hand hygiene. We investigated whether or not there was an increase in the incidence of irritant contact dermatitis in healthcare workers due to hand hygiene or other types of hygiene coinciding with the interventions and guidelines promoting hygiene. We used reports made by dermatologists to the Occupational and Health reporting network, a voluntary surveillance scheme collecting reports of work-related ill-health. Trends in incidence of irritant contact dermatitis due to hygiene in healthcare workers were compared with trends in control groups (irritant contact dermatitis in workers with other jobs) using a quasi-experimental (interrupted time series) design. We found a 4.5 fold increase in irritant contact dermatitis due to hand hygiene and hygiene in general in healthcare workers between 1996 and 2012. The results also suggested a steepening of the increase in incidence during the rollout period of the Cleanyourhands campaign but the limitations of the data made this less clear cut. (more…)
Author Interviews, Mental Health Research, Occupational Health / 10.02.2015

Prof.dr. Judith K. Sluiter Principal Investigator Manager KMKA: Kenniscentrum Medische Keuringen in Arbeid Nationaal secretaris voor ICOH (International Commission on Occupational Health) Coronel Instituut voor Arbeid en Gezondheid, Academisch Medisch Centrum / UvA Meibergdreef AmsterdamMedicalResearch.com Interview with: Prof.dr. Judith K. Sluiter Principal Investigator Manager KMKA: Kenniscentrum Medische Keuringen in Arbeid Nationaal secretaris voor ICOH (International Commission on Occupational Health) Coronel Instituut voor Arbeid en Gezondheid, Academisch Medisch Centrum / UvA Meibergdreef Amsterdam Medical Research: What is the background for this study? Prof. Sluiter: Professional footballers contain a group of employees working in a job with specific job demands. The occupational guidance and prevention of decreased work functioning of workers in these kinds of jobs should receive more attention. The mental health of professional footballers receive less attention compared to their physical health. We studied the prevalence of self-reported mental health problems and psychosocial difficulties in a group of current and former professional footballers, and we explored the association between having had psychosocial stressors and the health conditions under study. Medical Research: What are the main findings? Response: The response rate was 29% with available data from 253 footballers. In current players, the prevalence of mental health complaints ranged from 5% (burnout) to 26% (anxiety/depression). In former players, the prevalence ranged from 16% (burnout) to 39% (anxiety/depression). A small percentage of players had low self-esteem (3-5%). One quarter to two-fifth of the players showed adverse nutrition behaviour. Small but significant association between experiencing lower social support (OR=1.1) and having had recent life events (OR=1.4-1.6) and mental health complaints were found in current players. Having had severe injuries was associated with better nutrition behavior. In former players, having had life events showed a preventive effect on smoking (OR=0.4) and having had previous surgery was significantly associated with current smoking behavior (OR=1.9). (more…)
Author Interviews, CDC, OBGYNE, Occupational Health / 06.02.2015

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Barbara Grajewski, Ph.D., M.S., Epidemiologist Elizabeth Whelan, Ph.D., Branch Chief Christina Lawson, Ph.D., Epidemiologist Division of Surveillance, Hazard Evaluations and Field Studies National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Medical Research: What is the background for this study? Response: The study, published January 5 online ahead of print in the journal Epidemiology, looked at potential workplace reproductive hazards for flight attendants. While in flight, flight attendants are exposed to cosmic radiation from space and, periodically, can be exposed to radiation from solar particle events. Flight attendants can also experience circadian disruption (disruption to the body’s internal time clock) from traveling across time zones and from working during hours when they would normally be asleep. For this study, we analyzed 840 pregnancies among 673 female flight attendants and examined company records of 2 million single flights flown by these women. From these data, we estimated a marker of circadian disruption—working during normal sleeping hours—and exposure to cosmic and solar particle event radiation for each flight. This gives us a much more specific estimate of the exposures these workers face on the job every day. We also assessed the physical demands of the job, such as standing and walking for more than 8 hours a day and bending at the waist more than 25 times a day. Cosmic radiation and circadian disruption among flight attendants are linked very closely on many flights and are very difficult to look at separately when trying to understand what causes miscarriage. This is the first study that has attempted to separate these two exposures to determine which is potentially linked to miscarriage. This study is also an improvement over other studies in its assessment of cosmic radiation for each individual flight flown and from documentation of solar particle events. Earlier studies have looked at how many years a flight attendant has worked or other ways to estimate exposures that are not as specific. (more…)
ADHD, Author Interviews, FASEB, Occupational Health, Toxin Research / 06.02.2015

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jason R. Richardson MS,PhD DABT Associate Professor Department of Environmental and Occupational Medicine Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and Resident Member Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute Piscataway, NJ MedicalResearch: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Richardson:  Although ADHD is often though of as a genetic disorder, no single gene can explain more than a fraction of the cases. This suggests that environmental factors are likely to interact with genetic susceptibility to increase risk for ADHD. Our study reports that exposure of pregnant mice to relatively low levels of a commonly used pesticide reproduces the behavioral effects of ADHD in their offspring. Because the study was in animals, we wanted to see if there was any association in humans. Using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention we found that children and adolescents with elevated levels of metabolites of these pesticides in their urine, which indicates exposure, were more than twice as likely to be diagnosed with ADHD. (more…)
Alcohol, Author Interviews, BMJ, Occupational Health / 14.01.2015

Professor Marianna Virtanen PhD Unit of Expertise for Work and Organizations Finnish Institute of Occupational Health Helsinki, Finland.MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Professor Marianna Virtanen PhD Unit of Expertise for Work and Organizations Finnish Institute of Occupational Health Helsinki, Finland. Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Professor Virtanen: Risky alcohol use is common among working populations but the contribution of work-related factors such as long working hours has rarely been studied. In the present study we performed the first systematic analysis on published studies regarding long working hours and risky alcohol use and added unpublished individual participant data to the analyses. Altogether 61 studies were included in the cross sectional analysis and 20 studies in the prospective analysis. The pooled cross sectional analysis showed 11% higher alcohol use associated with long working hours. In the prospective analysis we found that working 49-54 hours a week was associated with a 13% increase in the probability of new-onset risky alcohol use and working 55 hours or more with a 12% increased risk. (more…)
Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Nursing, Occupational Health / 07.01.2015

Eva Schernhammer, MD, DrPH Associate Professor of Medicine Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School Associate Professor of Epidemiology Harvard School of Public Health Channing Division of Network MedicineMedicalResearch.com Interview with: Eva Schernhammer, MD, DrPH Associate Professor of Medicine Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School Associate Professor of Epidemiology Harvard School of Public Health Channing Division of Network Medicine Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Prof. Schernhammer: The study is an observational cohort study of over 70,000 registered nurses from within the US who reported the total number of years they had worked rotating night work and were followed for several decades. We examined overall mortality in these women, and observed significantly higher overall mortality, as well as higher mortality from cardiovascular disease in women with several years of rotating night shift work, compared to nurses who had never worked night shifts. There was also some suggestion for modest and non-significant increases in mortality from a few cancers. The study is unique due to its size, the fact that all participants were nurses (eliminating potential biases arising from differing occupational exposures), the long follow-up, and the possibility to take into account most known risk factors for chronic diseases that we currently know of (all of this information has been collected regularly and repeatedly).  (more…)
Author Interviews, Dermatology, JAMA, Melanoma, Occupational Health, UCSF / 18.12.2014

Martina Sanlorenzo, MD Department of Dermatology Mount Zion Cancer Research Center University of California, San FranciscoMedicalResearch.com Interview with: Martina Sanlorenzo, MD Department of Dermatology Mount Zion Cancer Research Center University of California, San Francisco Medical Research: What is the background for this study? Dr. Sanlorenzo: We recently performed a meta-analysis and found an increased risk of melanoma in pilots and cabin crew. One of the possible occupational hazards responsible for this risk is UV radiation. Medical Research: What are the main findings? Dr. Sanlorenzo: We performed UV measurements in airplane cockpits during flight and we found that windshields blocked UV-B but allowed UV-A transmission. We compared the UV-A dose in airplanes with the UV-A dose in tanning beds, whose use is a known risk factor for melanoma. Pilots flying for 56.6 minutes at 30,000 feet received the same amount of UV-A carcinogenic effective radiation of a 20-minute tanning beds session. (more…)
Author Interviews, BMJ, Heart Disease, Occupational Health / 19.11.2014

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Vasileia Varvarigou MD, Visiting Scientist at Harvard School of Public Health and Senior Medical Resident, St Elizabeth’s Medical Center, Tufts Medical School and Stefanos N Kales MD, MPH, Associate Professor, Harvard School of Public Health, Division Chief of Occupational Medicine, Cambridge Health Alliance/ Harvard Medical School Medical Research: What is the background for this study? Response: Previous epidemiologic studies of firefighters have documented markedly increased risks of acute death from heart disease during strenuous activities such as fire suppression as compared to non-emergency duties. We hypothesized that certain law enforcement tasks could serve as an occupational trigger in susceptible police officers, leading to an increased frequency of sudden cardiac death during stressful duties. Our main objective therefore, was to assess the association between risk of sudden cardiac death and stressful law enforcement duties compared with routine/non-emergency duties. (more…)
Author Interviews, HIV, Occupational Health / 13.11.2014

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Luís Fernando de Macedo Brígido M.D. Ph.D. Núcleo de Doenças de Vinculação Sanguínea e Sexual Centro de Virologia  Instituto Adolfo Lutz São Paulo Brasil Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Fomite transmission of HIV, especially in occupational exposure, have been reported, but the use of manicure utensils has not been previously associated to HIV transmission.  We report a case where none of the classical modes of transmission were identified, and a detailed review of clinical history and phylogenetic analysis allowed the association of the case’s infection to manicure care episodes at home with an HIV infected women many years ago. (more…)
Author Interviews, BMJ, Circadian Rhythm, Cognitive Issues, Metabolic Syndrome, Occupational Health / 04.11.2014

Dr. Philip Tucker Department of Psychology | Yr Adran Seicoleg College of Human and Health Sciences | Coleg y Gwyddorau Dynol ac lechyd Swansea University | Prifysgol Abertawe Singleton Park | Parc Singleton Swansea | Abertawe Medical Research: What is the background for this stuMedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Philip Tucker Department of Psychology | Yr Adran Seicoleg College of Human and Health Sciences | Coleg y Gwyddorau Dynol ac lechyd Swansea University | Prifysgol Abertawe Singleton Park | Parc Singleton Swansea | Abertawe Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Tucker: Shift work, like jet-lag, is known to disrupt workers’ normal circadian rhythms (i.e. their body clocks) and their social life. It is also associated with greater risk of developing ulcers, cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome, breast cancer and reproductive problems. Several studies have also shown that shift workers experience heightened fatigue and sleepiness, particularly at night, and this may affect job performance and safety. However, very little is known about the long-term consequences of shift work on cognitive abilities. We followed a large sample of shift workers and non-shift workers over 10 years, testing their cognitive performance every 5 years. We found that the shift workers’ cognitive performance was lower than that of the day workers.  The difference was greatest for those who had worked shifts for more than 10 years. The shift workers’ cognitive function recovered after they quit shift work, but this recovery took at least 5 years from time that they stopped working shifts. The effects could not be attributed to poorer sleep quality among shift workers. Rather, it seems likely that the findings reflect the disruption of the shift workers’ circadian rhythms, which as been shown by other researchers to have an impact on brain structures involved in cognition and mental health over the lifespan. (more…)
Author Interviews, BMJ, Occupational Health, Tobacco / 22.10.2014

Dr. John Cherrie PhD Honorary Professor in Occupational Hygiene Institute of Applied Health Sciences Aberdeen, UKMedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. John Cherrie PhD Honorary Professor in Occupational Hygiene Institute of Applied Health Sciences Aberdeen, UK Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Cherrie: We set out to bring together measurements of fine particle levels in homes where smoking takes place, to compare these with smoke-free homes and then to estimate how much of these fine particles are inhaled by people at different stages in their life. We also wanted to look at the exposure to particles of non-smokers living with smokers and compare this with the exposure of people living in heavily polluted major cities around the world. (more…)