Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate relationships between worksite organizational characteristics (size, industrial sector, leadership commitment, and organizational supports) and integrated approaches to protecting and promoting worker health implemented in smaller enterprises. Methods: We analyzed web-based survey data of Human Resource Managers at 114 smaller enterprises (<750 employees) to identify organizational factors associated with levels of integrated approaches among their worksites. Results: The companies' mean integration score was 13.6 (SD = 9.6) of a possible 44. In multivariate analyses, having a safety committee (P = 0.035) and top leadership support for health promotion (HP) (P = 0.004) were positively associated with higher integration scores. Conclusions: Smaller enterprises in one U.S. region have relatively low levels of implementing integrated safety and promotion approaches. Having a safety committee and leadership support for HP may be important contributors to implementing integrated approaches in smaller enterprises.

Promotion (chess)

10.1097/jom.0000000000000949

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Physical Activity Levels at Work and Outside of Work Among Commercial Construction Workers

Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (2015)

Oscar E. Arias Alberto J. Caban‐Martinez Peter E. Umukoro Cassandra A. Okechukwu Jack T. Dennerlein

Objective: Characterize the number of minutes of moderate and vigorous physical activities at work and outside of work during seven consecutive days, in a sample of 55 commercial construction workers. Methods: Workers wore accelerometers during work and outside-of-work hours for seven consecutive days and completed brief survey at the seventh day of data collection. Results: From the directly measured physical activity, the average number per participant of moderate minutes of occupational physical activity and physical activity outside of work obtained in short bouts were 243 minutes (65%) and 130 minutes (35%), respectively. Directly measured minutes of vigorous occupational physical activity were significant and positively correlated with self-reported fatigue. Conclusions: Among commercial construction workers, physical activity from work contributes significantly, approximately two thirds, toward a worker's total amount of weekly minutes of moderate physical activity.

Work hours

10.1097/jom.0000000000000303

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Acute and chronic disability among U.S. farmers and pesticide applicators: the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS).

PubMed (2004)

Orlando Gómez-Marı́n Lora E. Fleming Dayeong Lee William G. LeBlanc D.-H. Zheng

The National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) is a multipurpose household survey of the U.S. civilian non-institutionalized population conducted annually since 1957. From 1986 to 1994, over 450,000 U.S. workers, age 18 years and older, participated in a probability sampling of the entire non-institutionalized U.S. population; variables collected included a range of measures of acute and chronic disability. The objective of the present study was to assess predictors of health status, and acute and chronic disability for farmers and pesticide applicators (pesticide-exposed workers) compared to all other U.S. workers using the 1986-1994 NHIS. After adjustment for sample weights and design effects using SUDAAN, several measures of acute and chronic disability and health status were modeled with multiple logistic regression. Farmers (n = 9576) were significantly older compared to all other U.S. workers (n = 453,219) and pesticide applicators (n = 180). Farmers and pesticide applicators had a higher proportion of males, whites, and Hispanics and were less educated. After adjusting for age, gender, race-ethnicity, and education, compared to all other workers, farmers were significantly less likely to report acute and chronic disability and health conditions, while pesticide applicators were more likely to report chronic disability, health conditions, and poor health. Given the cross-sectional nature of the data and the significant job demands of farming, both leading to a relative healthy worker effect, the present results indicate that at any point in time, farmers report less acute and chronic disability, compared to other U.S. workers, whereas pesticide applicators report similar or poorer health.

Cross-sectional study

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A pediatrician's personal digital assistant: Ubiquitous computing

Alberto J. Caban‐Martinez Alberto J. Caban-Alemañy

Abstract Personal digital assistants (PDAs) can provide a portable,integrated platform for point-of-care clinical reference, patientmanagement, and data communication for pediatricianspracticing in an ambulatory or hospital setting. Clinical referenceprograms within the PDA can allow pediatricians to access Editor’s Note : This is the last of four articles published in 2004 for which a total of up to 4 Category 1 CME credit hours can beearned. Instructions for how credit hours can be earned appear after the Table of Contents. Exam questions will appear after thearticle.From the American Medical Informatics Association, StudentWorking Group, Bethesda, Maryland (Caban-Martinez, BS, MPH)and Nova Southeastern University College of OsteopathicMedicine, Department of Pediatrics, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida (Dr.Caban-Alemany).Address reprint requests to Alberto J. Caban-Alemany, MD, 11760Bird Road, Suite 342, Miami FL, 33165, USA.information from the Internet and anticipatory guidelines issuedby the American Academy of Pediatrics. Patient managementprograms allow pediatricians to access and store clinicalinformation. Wireless technologies, such as the PDA, havepotential for rapid exchange of clinical laboratory results andefficient electronic patient information transfers. Thus, thesedevices provide the potential for true continuity of care acrossall aspects of general pediatrics. In this article we present thebasic hardware, operating system, and applications of the PDAfor the contemporary pediatrician.

Miami

Laptop

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Serum per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance concentrations and longitudinal change in post-infection and post-vaccination SARS-CoV-2 antibodies

Environmental Research (2023)

James Hollister Alberto J. Caban‐Martinez Katherine Ellingson Shawn C. Beitel Ashley Fowlkes

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are ubiquitous throughout the United States. Previous studies have shown PFAS exposure to be associated with a reduced immune response. However, the relationship between serum PFAS and antibody levels following SARS-CoV-2 infection or COVID-19 vaccination has not been examined. We examined differences in peak immune response and the longitudinal decline of antibodies following SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 vaccination by serum PFAS levels in a cohort of essential workers in the United States. We measured serum antibodies using an in-house semi-quantitative enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Two cohorts contributed blood samples following SARS-CoV-2 infection or COVID-19 vaccination. We used linear mixed regression models, adjusting for age, race/ethnicity, gender, presence of chronic conditions, location, and occupation, to estimate differences in immune response with respect to serum PFAS levels. Our study populations included 153 unvaccinated participants that contributed 316 blood draws over a 14-month period following infection, and 860 participants and 2451 blood draws over a 12-month period following vaccination. Higher perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS), perfluorohexane sulfonic acid (PFHxS), and perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA) concentrations were associated with a lower peak antibody response after infection (p = 0.009, 0.031, 0.015). Higher PFOS, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), PFHxS, and PFNA concentrations were associated with slower declines in antibodies over time after infection (p = 0.003, 0.014, 0.026, 0.025). PFOA, PFOS, PFHxS, and PFNA serum concentrations prior to vaccination were not associated with differences in peak antibody response after vaccination or with differences in decline of antibodies over time after vaccination. These results suggest that elevated PFAS may impede potential immune response to SARS-CoV-2 infection by blunting peak antibody levels following infection; the same finding was not observed for immune response to vaccination.

Perfluorooctanoic acid

10.1016/j.envres.2023.117297

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Mapping carcinogen exposure across urban fire incident response arenas using passive silicone-based samplers

Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety (2021)

Umer Bakali Jeramy Baum Chitvan Killawala Erin N. Kobetz Natasha Schaefer Solle

Carcinogens are emitted in significant quantities at fire scenes and are a major contributor in the increased cancer risk observed in firefighters when compared to the general population. A knowledge gap exists in the current understanding of the distribution of these toxic compounds within a localized fire incident response arena. Here, we employ stationary silicone-based passive samplers at controlled live fire trainings to evaluate the deposition behavior of polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) emitted by fires. Our findings indicate significantly greater total PAH exposure in fires fueled by biomass and wood compared to fires burning cleaner fuels, such as propane. A 22% increase in total PAH deposition and a 68% increase in high molecular weight PAH deposition was recorded for biomass fueled fires compared to propane fueled fires. Furthermore, we observe that heavier molecular weight PAHs exhibit a pronounced deposition front within a certain radius of the hot zone, whereas low molecular weight PAHs are more uniformly distributed throughout the area. These findings highlight that the warm zones and cold zones of fire situations yield elevated levels of carcinogen exposure to first responders within them. We anticipate that these findings will help inform decisions made by emergency personnel when evaluating risk for the hot zone, warm zone, and cold zone of urban fires helping ease the carcinogenic risk experienced.

Deposition

10.1016/j.ecoenv.2021.112929

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Citations (10)