Occupational Health

In a year like no other, DEOHS faculty, students and staff quickly pivoted to tackle new threats posed by the pandemic. We contributed to Washington state's COVID-19 response, showed the effectiveness of self-sampling for the virus and assessed impacts on essential workers—not to mention our furry friends.

DEOHS Teaching Professor Martin Cohen How do you lead 20 students on a field trip during a pandemic?

Gilbert Omenn and Martha Darling are longtime benefactors of the UW School of Public Health. Photo: Courtesy of Omenn.

Elizabeth Torres with El Proyecto Bienestar.

The UW Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences (DEOHS) has completed a major move into the new Hans Rosling Center for Population Health on the University of Washington campus.

Read the full story, including interactive graphics on the research findings. Learn more

As wildfires burn across the western United States—intensified by warmer, drier conditions caused by climate change—the forest workers who help prevent such fires are more critical than ever.

This summer, I interned at the Department of Occupational Safety & Health in the Washington State Department of Labor & Industries. I learned about ensuring the health and safety of employees exposed to different hazards, especially the COVID-19 pandemic.

Right now, some 140,000 agricultural workers are picking apples, peaches and other crops at the peak of Washington’s harvest season, just as Gov. Jay Inslee has declared a state of emergency in response to wildfires burning across the state.

Editor's note: Natalie Peterson is a UW senior completing her BS in Environmental Health. Her JRCOSTEP internship was recently featured by the Indian Health Service on its website.  

Lianne Sheppard fought recent efforts by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to suppress the role of academic scientists advising the agency on environmental policy. The University of Washington professor also battled back against attacks on her research into the link between cancer and glyphosate, a widely used herbicide.

A graduate student and a recent alumna of the UW Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences (DEOHS) have teamed up this summer to help improve worker health and safety in the US pork industry.

“How can we make our operating room safer during the pandemic?” When Dr. James Hecker, an anesthesiologist at UW Medical Center, heard this question from a fellow physician, he thought about the problem not just as a doctor but also as an engineer.

How many times can a health care worker safely reuse a face mask?

 

Early in his career, Noah Seixas spent six months working on the assembly line of a rifle manufacturer in Massachusetts “to see what life was like on the line in a dirty, crappy factory.”

Alexa Yadama BS, Environmental Health Hometown Pullman, WA Future plans A career in environmental or public health, and eventually a master’s in public health. “ I really appreciate mixing public health with my science background and helping people with the knowledge I have.”

 

Business owners who have weathered pandemic closures face a new challenge as they prepare to reopen—protecting their workers in a landscape altered by the novel coronavirus. Now researchers in the UW Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences (DEOHS) are teaming up to help them.

Each spring, seasonal farmworkers arrive in the Pacific Northwest for the planting season. This year, they’ve been met with a public health emergency.

Read the news release Workers who pick our fruits and vegetables already face harsh conditions in fields during summer harvest months. Those conditions will worsen significantly over the coming decades.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced us all to adapt—whether that means throwing together dinner from pantry staples or tackling an urgent public health concern with some ingenuity and left-over materials in your lab.

Women who experience high employment precarity prior to or during pregnancy have a 48% higher risk of delivering low-birth-weight infants than women with low employment precarity, according to a study from researchers at the University of Washington School of Public Health.

Read the news release about Baker's study

Are you a business owner or worker grappling with the impact of COVID-19 on your workplace? See our COVID-19 resource guide for businesses and employees  

Our empty roads and restaurants reflect our new reality: Many workers are now working remotely in response to the coronavirus outbreak. But what if your work requires your presence?

Hannah Echt’s passion for public health is something of a family tradition. Hannah Echt MS, Occupational Hygiene Hometown: Cincinnati, OH Favorite thing about Seattle: "The public transportation is really good. You can get pretty much everywhere you need to go on the bus or light rail."

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Working in construction demands long hours and strenuous labor with the ever-present risk of injury. Women construction workers face unique challenges on top of that.  Assistant Professor Marissa Baker

Exposure to the toxin cadmium, a known human carcinogen, leads to accelerated cognitive impairment, even at levels found in people who do not smoke cigarettes, according to a new animal study from res