In November a fire consumed a clothing factory in Bangladesh with more than 100 deaths. It appears the doors were locked and there were no emergency exits. This is all too reminiscent of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire that occurred in the US in 1911, when 146 workers died. The Bangladesh factory supplied clothing to many […]
Latest articles
Possible breakthrough on falls in the elderly
Most falls among elderly due to incorrect weight-shifting A study in British Columbia involved “strategically placed video cameras in long-term care facilities” that recorded falls among the elderly residents. Based on an analysis of recordings of 227 falls involving 130 individuals the researchers found that 70 per cent occurred “during a failed attempt at performing […]
Wedding gunfire electrocutes 25 people
Celebratory gunfire brought down an electric cable at a house in a village in Saudi Arabia. This may have caused a fire that killed 23 women and children or the powerline may have fallen on a metal door electrocuting the victims. Saudi Arabia last month banned the shooting of firearms at weddings, a popular tradition […]
WHO urges Thailand to enforce traffic laws
It appears that Thailand has solid traffic injury prevention laws but as is true of far too many other countries they are not enforced. This paradox applies to speeding, seatbelt use, drunk driving and motorcycle helmet use. Editor: I found it bizarre that in response one official said, “The first thing that must be done […]
PhD Scholarship Opportunity
The University of Ballarat (Australia) has a new Centre for Healthy and Safe Sport (CHASS), under the direction of Professor Caroline Finch. CHASS is offering two PhD scholarship opportunities. Applications from both Australian and International candidates are invited: Statistical coding, classification and analysis Advanced statistical modelling of longitudinal injury data e.g. time series modelling and prediction, survival analysis […]
People in the news: Sue Baker
In the October 16 issue of the New York Times Magazine, Robert Stock has written a marvelous article about Sue Baker and her work. If this captivating photo is not enough to encourage you to seek it out, nothing will. The piece is long, beautifully written, and so detailed it could serve as a history […]
Research tools
MakeUseOf http://www.makeuseof.com/ is, if you will pardon what may or may not be a pun, a remarkably useful website. I receive an email newsletter regularly and more often than not it includes some extremely helpful advice. This week it dealt with ‘tools’ (electronic) that might prove helpful when doing research. These range from free word […]
Watch these words!
I was recently going through some old files and found a letter to the editor of our Montreal paper in which I pointed out that the Lancet was not a ‘muckraking’ in the negative sense the paper’s editorial implied. As I noted, muckraking is a positive term; an activity that sheds light on bad behaviour, […]
Are we being too safe?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323622904578129063506832312.html?mod=googlenews_wsj. This a link to a fairly recent Wall Street Journal article, Playing It Too Safe, which essentially argues that children should take more risks. It is a bit more nuanced than many of the ‘school of hard knocks’ rhetoric and thus worth reading. I don’t agree with the view but you might. If you […]
Dumb ways to die
Dumb ways to die animated video […]