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Poor management of construction projects is a major cause of accidents and occupational health hazards in the building industry. In response to general concern over the level of avoidable illness and injury prevalent in UK construction, the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 1994 (CDM Regulations) were created. The main changes in the 2015 Regulations include changes to duty holders: removal of CDM co‐ordinator, creation of the new role of principal designer duty holder for projects involving more than one contractor, clarification of the duties of the worker, and greater duties for the client. The Regulations apply to all construction work. Notifiable work includes work lasting for more than 30 days, work involving more than 20 people working on a project at the same time, and work exceeding 500 person‐equivalent days; it also includes all works involving demolition. The chapter provides summaries of the duties of the main duty holders in the Regulations.

Public health surveillance is the cornerstone of public health practice and can be defined as the systematic, ongoing collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of data followed by the dissemination of these data to public health programs to stimulate public health action. Stakeholders in the US at all levels of government (ie, federal and state, territorial, local, and tribal), in academia and industry, and the general public rely on high-quality, timely surveillance data to detect and monitor diseases, injuries, and conditions; assess the impact of interventions; and assist in the management of large-scale disease incidents. Surveillance data are crucially important to inform policy changes, guide new program interventions, sharpen public communications, and help agencies assess research investments. Here, Richards et al discuss new strategy for public health surveillance at CDC to improve national surveillance activities and outcomes.

On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck the U.S. Gulf Coast, the eye making landfall at Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana . The events that followed made Katrina the deadliest hurricane since 1928 and likely the costliest natural disaster on record in the United States. Devastating storm surge, strong winds, and heavy rains caused widespread destruction in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. Storm-induced breeches in the levee system surrounding New Orleans flooded 80% of the city. The disaster was compounded when Hurricane Rita made landfall 26 days later near the Texas-Louisiana border, forcing cessation of hurricane-response activities in New Orleans and evacuation of coastal regions of Louisiana and Texas. The economic and health consequences of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita extended beyond the Gulf region to affect states and communities throughout the United States. MMWR is highlighting the public health response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita with two special issues. The first issue, published January 20, 2006, focused on public health activities in Louisiana. This second issue focuses on activities in other states directly or indirectly affected by the two hurricanes.

Public health surveillance is the cornerstone of public health practice. The uses of surveillance include the identification of patterns of health among population subgroups. The assessment of race and ethnicity in public health surveillance is fundamental to the reduction of preventable excesses in poor health among racial and ethnic populations. We review the use of race and ethnic variables in national public health surveillance systems in the United States. One barrier to the use of race and ethnicity in public health surveillance is the lack of scientific consensus on the nature of race and ethnicity and the measurement of these variables. Differences in terminology, data collection procedures, perceptions of group identity, and changing demographics of the U.S. population present particular challenges for surveillance. We propose criteria for any useful variables collected through surveillance. Application of these criteria to race and ethnicity suggests that race as assessed in surveillance is not primarily associated with biological characteristics, but it is more like ethnicity--a matter of self-perceived membership in population groups. Regular evaluation of surveillance systems will contribute to the usefulness of information on race and ethnicity in the improvement of the health of minority populations.

On August 24, 2005, Tropical Depression 12 became Tropical Storm Katrina, the 11th named storm of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. Late on August 25, Katrina made initial landfall in south Florida as a category 1 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale. Katrina strengthened rapidly upon reaching the Gulf of Mexico, attaining category 5 intensity. On August 29, Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast near the Louisiana-Mississippi border as a category 3 hurricane. The effect of earlier category 5 wind speeds on Gulf waters and the massive size of the storm combined to create devastating storm-surge conditions for coastal Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama and damage as far east as the Florida panhandle. Storm-induced breeches in the New Orleans levee system resulted in the catastrophic flooding of approximately 80% of that city. Hurricane Katrina was the deadliest hurricane to strike the United States since 1928. Preliminary mortality reports indicate approximately 1,000 Katrina-related deaths in Louisiana, 200 in Mississippi, and 20 in Florida, Alabama, and Georgia.

Secondhand smoke is a known carcinogen. Exposure to secondhand smoke causes approximately 35,000 heart disease deaths and 3,000 lung cancer deaths among nonsmokers in the United States every year. Implementing policies that establish smoke-free environments is the most effective approach to reducing secondhand smoke exposure among nonsmokers. Smoking restrictions and smoke-free policies can take the form of laws or regulations implemented at the state or local level or of voluntary policies implemented by private employers and businesses. Smoking restrictions limit smoking to certain areas within a venue; smoke-free policies ban smoking within the entire venue. One of the national health objectives for 2010 is to establish laws in all 50 states and the District of Columbia (DC) that prohibit or restrict smoking in public places and worksites. A related objective calls for all worksites to voluntarily implement policies that prohibit or restrict smoking. To assess progress toward meeting the first objective, CDC reviewed the status of state laws restricting smoking as of December 31, 2004, updating a 1999 study that reported on such laws as of December 31, 1998. This report summarizes the changes in state smoking restrictions for private-sector worksites, restaurants, and bars that occurred during 1999-2004. The findings indicate an increase in the number and restrictiveness of state laws regulating smoking in private-sector worksites, restaurants, and bars from 1999 through 2004. At the end of 2004, however, 16 states still had no restrictions on smoking in any of the three settings considered. Although secondhand smoke exposure among U.S. nonsmokers has decreased sharply in recent years, a substantial portion of nonsmokers continue to be exposed to secondhand smoke.

Amid concerns about the fires and suspected presence of toxic materials in the rubble pile following the collapse of the World Trade Center (WTC) buildings on September 11, 2001, the New York City Department of Health (NYCDOH) asked CDC for assistance in evaluating occupational exposures at the site. CDC's National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) collected general area (GA) and personal breathing zone (PBZ) air samples for numerous potential air contaminants. This report summarizes the results of the assessment, which indicate that most exposures, including asbestos, did not exceed NIOSH recommended exposure limits (RELs) or Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) permissible exposure limits (PELs). One torch cutter was overexposed to cadmium; another worker was overexposed to carbon monoxide (CO) while cutting metal beams with an oxyacetylene torch or a gasoline-powered saw, and two more were possibly overexposed to CO. NIOSH recommended that workers ensure adequate on-site ventilation when using gas-powered equipment and use rechargeable, battery-powered equipment when possible.

This chapter contains sections titled: Application Table 2.1 The main responsibilities of duty holders Interpretation Additional exclusions

ABC of Work Related Disorders. [(BNI unique abstract)] 4 references

[...]the two lists of reportable and prescribed diseases overlap considerably, and for patients to gain any benefit from the state they must prove that they worked in a specific occupation that resulted in their disease.