illness

Recreational Water Illnesses (RWI) mostly caused by germs in contaminated water as well as personal injury such as drowning, slips, trips and falls occur every summer in pools, jacuzzis, water parks, water play areas, interactive fountains or lakes, rivers and recreational areas at the ocean. In order to prevent these illnesses and injuries the Center for Disease Control is running its annual prevention campaign as Memorial Day marks the annual pool and beach season’s opening day. This year’s theme is “How We Swimmers Contaminate Pools”

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A recent study from the CDC that analyzed filter backwash samples found e-coli in more than 58% of the samples. This rate goes up to 73% when patrons are primarily children. Detection of E-coli signifies that swimmers introduce fecal material in the water either by washing off of their bodies or because of a diarrheal fecal incident. The latest is the most dangerous because it increases the risk for pathogen transmissions. Other very common germs brought by fecal material in pool or water play areas are Cryptosporidium or Crypto, Giardia, Shigella and Norovirus, according to the latest Surveillance for Waterborne Disease Outbreaks and Other Health Events Associated with Recreational Water Summary.

While working on the Firefighter Injury Research and Safety Trend FEMA project, Workplace safety researchers from Drexel University School of Public Health found out that the addition of industry and occupation data information in the data collected by hospitals would benefit not only firefighters but also every woker in America. Here is a link to the white paper.

Every year an estimated 4.1 million workers suffer a serious work injury or illness however the number of workplace injuries as well as information about the type of injury and how, when and why specific injuries occur are not tracked by hospitals. In the “The Need for Industry and Occupation in Hospital Data” that was just published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Dr. Jennifer Taylor, Assistant Professor, and Leslie Frey, Policy Coordinator in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at the Drexel University School of Public Health petitioned for the inclusion of standards for industry and occupation within hospital data.

Articles Tagged with illness

Recreational Water Illness and Injury (RWII) Prevention: CDC Campaign focuses on How Swimmers Contaminate Pools