Fertility or Unemployment - Should You Have to Choose

This article will address the legal issues involved in establishing an equitable balance between women\u27s rights to equal employment opportunities and the right of future generations to be free from disease caused by parental exposures to hazardous chemical work environments. In the author\u27s opinion the present regulatory framework provided by the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (OSHAct), the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is inadequate to provide the requisite degree of protection to employees and, particularly, to their offspring. Part II of the article will examine some of the available scientific and medical data regarding the reproductive effects of a few of the most commonly used industrial chemicals. In Part III the statutory scheme provided by the OSHAct, TSCA and Title VII will be analyzed. As stated above, the discussion will reveal that these statutes do not adequately answer the thorny problem of reproductive fetal health protection from the damaging effects of toxic substances. The primary reason for this inadequacy is that the statutes were never designed nor intended to deal with the health problems facing future generations of American workers, but rather, specifically focus on the present generation of employees. Part IV of the article presents a statutory proposal in the form of an amendment to the OSHAct aimed at accommodating the societal needs for fetal protection, without weakening the mandate of equal employment rights legislation. The proposed statute is designed to address the scientific reality that both women\u27s and men\u27s reproductive systems might be adversely affected by certain toxic chemicals. Therefore, both classes of employees should be legally protected from exposure to hazardous work environment by designating nondiscriminatory standards designed to best achieve this goal. Additionally, guidelines will be recommended for use by the courts to scrutinize employer\u27s defenses regarding the establishment of exclusionary policies

Fertility or Unemployment - Should You Have to Choose

This article will address the legal issues involved in establishing an equitable balance between women\u27s rights to equal employment opportunities and the right of future generations to be free from disease caused by parental exposures to hazardous chemical work environments. In the author\u27s opinion the present regulatory framework provided by the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (OSHAct), the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is inadequate to provide the requisite degree of protection to employees and, particularly, to their offspring. Part II of the article will examine some of the available scientific and medical data regarding the reproductive effects of a few of the most commonly used industrial chemicals. In Part III the statutory scheme provided by the OSHAct, TSCA and Title VII will be analyzed. As stated above, the discussion will reveal that these statutes do not adequately answer the thorny problem of reproductive fetal health protection from the damaging effects of toxic substances. The primary reason for this inadequacy is that the statutes were never designed nor intended to deal with the health problems facing future generations of American workers, but rather, specifically focus on the present generation of employees. Part IV of the article presents a statutory proposal in the form of an amendment to the OSHAct aimed at accommodating the societal needs for fetal protection, without weakening the mandate of equal employment rights legislation. The proposed statute is designed to address the scientific reality that both women\u27s and men\u27s reproductive systems might be adversely affected by certain toxic chemicals. Therefore, both classes of employees should be legally protected from exposure to hazardous work environment by designating nondiscriminatory standards designed to best achieve this goal. Additionally, guidelines will be recommended for use by the courts to scrutinize employer\u27s defenses regarding the establishment of exclusionary policies

The Feasibility of a Flexibly Delivered Professional Development Program for Teachers in Road Safety Education

School-based prevention education programs can contribute to a reduction in childhood road trauma by increasing students\u27 knowledge, attitudes and skills. Professional development (PO) for teachers is needed to ensure effective implementation of health curricula. Access to conventional workshop PD is restricted by obstacles such as time, cost and lack of resources. A flexibly delivered PD program would allow teachers to study when, where and how they prefer. The purpose of this study was to examine the feasibility of a flexibly delivered PD program for teachers in road safety education. The target population was teachers from Western Australian primary schools. A self-completed questionnaire was administered by mail. The instrument addressed factors such as perceived importance of road safety, education needs of students, previous participation in PD and use of road safety education resources. The time, location and what method of delivery preferred by teachers for a flexible learning PD program were also identified. The resources and information that teachers wanted included in a flexibly delivered PD program on road safety education were also determined. Knowledge of how to access an Internet site, location of access to the Internet and the likelihood of teachers in government and non-government schools participating in a flexibly delivered PD program on road safety education were also established. Teachers perceived road safety to be an important health topic and the need for the road safety education of students was identified by teachers. Road safety resources were used to supplement or in place of the Health Education K-10 Syllabus. Videos, discussion posters and storybooks were considered important resources to be included in a road safety education program. Information concerning essential facts about road safety, involving parents and the community, a road safety policy for schools, resources, an action plan and teaching strategies were also perceived as important components to be incorporated in a road safety PD program. Teachers preferred to participate in PD at school during school hours Greater interest was shown by teachers in a flexible learning package of hard-copy materials rather than a flexible learning package available on the Internet. The majority of teachers knew how to access an Internet site and had access to the Internet either at home, school or both. The findings of this research suggest that a flexibly delivered PD program in road safety education is feasible. The proposed flexible learning PD program may utilise both methods of delivery to allow for those who do not have access to the Internet or do not possess Internet skill

MS

thesisHealth information systems are networks of computers employed by health care enterprises to facilitate the delivery of their health care product. Computers originally entered the medical domain solely as tools aimed at the business functions of the hospital. Having demonstrated their utility in this area, computers were perceived by certain innovators to have usefulness in the clinical domain. As clinical computer applications were successfully developed and implemented, they have over time been merged together into systems offering multiple areas of functionality directly impacting the clinical aspects of health care delivery. Such health information systems have now assumed major importance in the provision of health care in a complex medical environment. Although the focus of substantial investment for development and implementation, relatively little work has been done to assess the value of such health information systems. The business information technology literature and the medical informatics literature each include only a small number of published reports examining the value question in an incomplete manner. No generally accepted valuation strategy has been developed for information systems in either the business or health care domains. Several valuation methods with potential applicability to health information systems have evolved: cost-effectiveness / cost- benefit analysis, return on investment, information economics, measurement systems, the Strassmann approach, the Japanese approach, and the strategic value approach. None of these valuation strategies is clearly superior; each has different strengths and weaknesses. A matrix comparing these strategies on the bases of explicitness and ease of implementation is proposed. Intermountain Health Care (IHC) has been instrumental in the development of health information systems and a leader in the application of such technology in clinical health care delivery. IHC's HELP system has played a seminal role as a catalyst to the development of the health information system industry. Although both historically and functionally important, detailed financial information regarding HELP'S origins and implementation no longer exists. Current IHC budget information demonstrates the major financial commitment underway within this health care enterprise totaling approximately $157 million over the last decade and with additional expenditures of$47 to $61 million projected annually through fiscal year 2004. The complex budgetary relationships between HELP and the other health information systems at LDS Hospital further obscure the magnitude of the information technology investment within this institution. Benefits of health information systems are potentially most substantial within the domain of clinical integration. IHC has not implemented any formal valuation strategy for its health information systems, but the ad hoc measurement systems valuation approach applied to date is practical, flexible, and the most appropriate of the available systems. Adequate valuation of health information systems cannot readily be achieved given the existing traditional hierarchical accounting structure; an alternative accounting framework patterned after a relational database is proposed