Your Health – Your Environment Blog Posts
Keep Your Cool in Hot Weather
Although summer officially began less than two weeks ago, many parts of our nation already have experienced very hot weather. And in some areas, those temperatures will continue into October. Most of us can’t spend three or four months in air-conditioned comfort, nor would we want to. If you want to work and play outdoors Read More >
Posted on by Leave a commentWhen Thunder Roars, Go Indoors!
June 22-28 is National Lightning Safety Week. Lightning strikes may be dangerous, but you can protect yourself from risk even if you are caught outdoors when lightning is close by. The weather forecast calls for a slight chance of thunderstorms, but you can only see a few fluffy white clouds overhead. So you and your Read More >
Posted on by Leave a commentSwimming This Summer? Use Pool Chemicals with Care
Summer is here, and that means it’s time for fun outdoor activities like swimming in your backyard or neighborhood pool. Or you may have the chance to enjoy a big, luxurious pool or an exciting waterpark while on vacation. If you own a pool, you know all too well how much work goes into keeping Read More >
Posted on by Leave a commentProtect Yourself From Wildfires
Dry conditions in parts of the United States increase the potential for wildfires in or near wilderness areas. Stay alert for wildfire warnings and take action to protect yourself and your family from wildfire smoke. When wildfires burn in your area, they produce smoke that may reach your community. Smoke from wildfires is a mixture Read More >
Posted on by Leave a commentThe 2014 Atlantic Hurricane Season: It’s here!
The 2014 Atlantic hurricane season began on June 1 and runs through November 30. It’s time to get ready! The 2012 hurricane season was the second consecutive year that a named storm devastated the mid-Atlantic and Northeast. Both Irene (2011) and Sandy (2012) caused fatalities, injuries, and tremendous destruction from coastal storm surge, heavy rainfall, Read More >
Posted on by Leave a commentComing Out of the Toxic Clouds
May 31, 2014 is World No Tobacco Day. Read about how NCEH’s Tobacco Laboratory measures toxic and addictive substances in tobacco smoke. Work in NCEH’s Tobacco Laboratory helps reduce exposure to secondhand smoke If you saw a cloud of smoke that you knew contained more than 4,000 chemical components, of which at least 250 caused Read More >
Posted on by Leave a commentCelebrating 20 years of Executive Order 12898: How far have we come and how do we create an impact in the next 20 years?
Guest post by LaToria Whitehead, PhD, Environmental Justice Officer National Center for Environmental Health Division of Emergency and Environmental Health Services February 11, 2014, marked the 20-year anniversary of former President Bill Clinton signing Executive Order 12898, a charge to all federal agencies to address disparate environmental and human health conditions in minority and low-income Read More >
Posted on by Leave a commentNational ALS Registry Aims to Find Answers
What do a Major League Baseball hall of fame player from the 1920s and 1930s, a former Baltimore Ravens football player, and about 5,600 persons annually in the United States have in common? All were diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). ALS claimed the life of former New York Yankees first baseman Lou Gehrig Read More >
Posted on by Leave a commentPreventing Exposure to Metals in Arizona Mining Country
You may find ATSDR regional representatives just about anywhere in the United States—in Alaska or Puerto Rico, in the mountains of Montana, or even in the Arizona high desert. That’s where Region 9 representatives Ben Gerhardstein and Jamie Rayman have been working with residents of Dewey-Humboldt, a small town created out of two former mining Read More >
Posted on by Leave a commentStaggering Numbers: Do You Know the Disease?
It’s been reported that an estimated 18.7 million adults and 6.8 million children in the United States have it. And about 14.2 million of those people visit a doctor’s office each year due to symptoms associated with it. In fact, in 2010, almost 2 million emergency room visits were due to complications from it, in Read More >
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