The Association of Occupational Psychosocial Factors with the Prevalence of Irritable Bowel Syndrome in the Chilean Working Population.

Background: Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a stress-related disease linked to psychosocial factors, though knowledge about its occupational psychosocial aspects is scarce.

Objective: A cross-sectional study of the prevalence of IBS and its association with occupational psychosocial factors in Chilean workers was conducted.

Methods: IBS prevalence, using the IBS-Rome IV criteria, in the working population was estimated using data from the National Health Survey of 2009.

Teachers Union Organizes Members to Enforce AHERA Law--A Work in Progress.

The Massachusetts Teachers Association's Environmental Health and Safety Committee is using a number of approaches to evaluate and improve the enforcement of the U.S. Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act legislation intended to ensure the proper management of asbestos in public buildings, including schools.

Fire and worker health and safety: an introduction to the special issue.

One century ago, the landmark fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City claimed the lives of 146 garment workers and helped spur the adoption of fire safety measures and laws targeting dangerous working conditions. Since that time, continuing advances have been made to address the threat of fire-in workplace fire safety practices and regulations, in training and safety requirements for firefighters and first responders, and in hazard communication laws that enhance disaster planning and response. Recent high profile events, including the West, Texas fertilizer plant explosion, derailments of fuel cargo trains, and garment factory fires in Bangladesh, have brought renewed attention to fire as a workplace health and safety issue and to the unevenness of safety standards and regulatory enforcement, in the United States as well as internationally.

Building the new schoolhouse: the Massachusetts school building authority.

In a 2010 special issue of New Solutions on school health and environment, Paulson and Barnett asked who is responsible for the environmental health of schools. The Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA), the product of liberals trying to bring organization and efficiency to school construction, is an "off-label" and only partial answer to the question. The MSBA, established in 2004, lent its ear to health and safety advocates who seized an opportunity to implement regulations, guidelines, and education reforms at the level of school construction.

Creative mistrust.

Based on six years spent investigating worker health and safety conditions at U.S. Department of Energy sites that were formerly engaged in the production of nuclear weapons, the authors report on a set of common themes that emerged in their interviews with workers.

From (before) Bhopal to (after) BP: trade secrets and the right to know.

This paper discuses the tensions between, on the one hand, workers' and communities' right to know about occupational and environmental hazards, and on the other hand, trade secrets and the rights of their corporate owners. We first discuss the role of trade secrets in economic development in the context of the benefits claimed for free markets. We then describe the ongoing struggles of workers and communities in the United States for access to information about hazards.

Social factors in occupational health: a history of hard hats.

Personal protective equipment (PPE) is the least desirable way to ensure workplace safety, and it is difficult to use consistently. Hard hats are different; they have cachet and are often worn even when they are not required. We investigated the history of this personal protective equipment to see if there were any lessons that could be applied to other forms of PPE.

Negotiating indoor air-case report on negotiation of teachers' union, school board on air contaminants.

School districts increasingly understand the need for an indoor air quality plan, but may have difficulty in producing a plan that all necessary parties will accept. This article provides a case study of how one Massachusetts school district, after experiencing environmental problems in an elementary school, worked with parents and unions to develop a comprehensive indoor air quality plan.

It will take persistence: the dynamics of a university-community partnership to sustain the New England worker health and safety movement.

The New England Consortium (TNEC) is a university-community partnership that since 1987 has delivered health and safety training for hazardous waste operations and emergency response (HAZWOPER) workers. Through two decades of the relative loss of power by the labor and environmental movements and subsequent reductions in state support for worker health and safety, this selective history of TNEC demonstrates its ability to sustain a worker health and safety movement in New England. The evolution of TNEC's partnership process and the principles and policies by which it operates have helped to resolve several critical conflicts and strengthen its working relationships.

Clearing the air: the evolution of organized labor's role in tobacco control in the United States.

As efforts to make U.S. worksites smoke-free took shape in the 1980s, the tobacco industry sought to defeat them by forming alliances with organized labor.

A decade of work on organized labor and tobacco control: reflections on research and coalition building in the United States.

Labor unions can and should make strong allies in tobacco control efforts. Through much of the 1980s and 1990s, however, the organized labor and tobacco control communities rarely formed coalitions to achieve mutual gains. Recently, labor unions and tobacco control organizations have begun to work together on smoking cessation programs, smoke-free worksite policies, and increased insurance coverage for cessation treatments.

Feeling the heat: displaced tobacco workers in North Carolina.

Tobacco control is a successful public health movement, but little attention is being paid to what this success means for workers and communities who are economically dependent on tobacco. The social context of job loss for these workers remains largely unstudied. We conducted a case study of a cigarette manufacturing facility closure in Reidsville, North Carolina and report on the effects of the closure for workers and the community.

Organized labor, public health, and tobacco control policy: a dialogue toward action.

An action-oriented conference, Organized Labor, Public Health, and Tobacco Control Policy, was held in September 2000 in Boston, Massachusetts. Labor union leaders, tobacco control and public health activists, researchers, and practitioners met for two days to: 1) learn about existing labor-based tobacco control initiatives; 2) educate one another about resources, barriers, and opportunities for labor-public health joint action on tobacco policy; 3) and identify where agendas overlap and form the basis for specific next steps in collaborative efforts in tobacco-related research, training, and advocacy. This report summarizes presentations and participant discussions to inform readers of the information exchanged and of the enthusiasm shared by conference participants translated into a set of joint recommendations for increased labor-based and joint labor-public health action to reduce the burden of tobacco on working people.