Health and Safety Books

I could type a great deal about this book, but if you are reading this I can only say that this is required reading and a mandatory reference book for any safety professional or hygienist.

Great coverage on the subject!

Confined spaces represent an often-unrecognized source of potentially serious injuries in workplaces throughout the world. The mere fact that a work area is restricted in some fashion (difficult entry, small volume or filled with obstacles) can turn a more commonplace event, such as a slip, trip or fall, into a serious injury or fatality. In a confined space, even the atmosphere can be deadly to workers.

Although many countries have recently developed or updated health and safety regulations and the general recognition of the hazards of these spaces has improved, over the years, very few good references have been published on the subject. "Safety and Health in Confined Spaces" is one of these. Mr. McManus has obviously put a tremendous amount of time and effort into a book which, although targeted more towards professional Industrial Hygienists than laypersons, still provides a valuable reference to anyone managing or developing confined space programs.

The first few chapters of the book describe some of the typical (as well as atypical) hazards that workers might encounter in confined spaces, including toxic, flammable and explosive atmospheres, engulfment, entrapment and confined energy (i.e.: mechanical and electrical systems and radiation). Later topics include the use of atmospheric testing devices, personal protective equipment, ventilation requirements and emergency rescue. The addition of good photographs of testing and communications equipment, as well as lockout devices and ventilation fans, is a plus.

Both Mr. McManus and myself agree that there is a need for more professional practice in this aspect of our industry. In recognition of this fact, an entire Appendix of this book has been devoted to a discussion of "Qualified Persons" - individuals with the appropriate qualifications and training specific to the recognition of hazards in confined spaces. To address this issue, Mr. McManus has provided a great deal of information on hazard management in confined spaces, including examples of hazard assessments and a model confined space program. What I have found particularly useful is that much of this information has been included in individual Appendices, for easier reference (one of these, "Appendix A: Standards, Guidelines and Regulations" even discusses the development of standards and guidelines in a number of countries, including Canada).

As an Industrial Hygienist who has routinely been involved in the preparation of hazard assessments and the development of procedures for work in confined spaces, I have found the book to be extremely valuable reference and recommend it to all Industrial Hygiene and Safety professionals.

If you are a safety and health professional this book should be part of your library and toolkit. This is an original work and not just a re-statement of the OSHA regulations with a fancy title and cover as so many EHS books are. I found the book a most useful tool on how to approach an overall health and safety program, with entry into confined spaces only a subset of that program. Readers will find the techniques, recommendations, materials, and the way of thinking equally valuable for situations outside of confined spaces as inside such work places. Readers will find the approach of the author is one of colleague sharing information ("This is the way I approached this problem, and here is what I found out.") rather than a typical listing of possible solutions culled from other sources. Chapter 8 is partuclarly valuable in that Mr. McManus takes you through his original approach to hazard assessment, and, although applicable to just about any situation faced by the EHS professional, is an excellent and comprehensive way to logically tackle the high hazard challenges of confined space entry. Chapter 5 on aspects of using a 'boundary surface' as an approach to dealing with atmospheric hazards in confined spaces is a good example of how Mr. McManus has broken out of the traditional and typical way of thinking about this topic; this is one example of real advantage of this book in that he presents a different and fresh way to approach many aspects of safety and health challenges. There are also numerous anecdotes presented that I have used in my training in confined space entry work (e.g., the dead rodent in the vault that was suspected of causing an oxygen deficiency down to 5% O2). After having used this book for some time, I find that I reach for this book first on just about any subject as I usually find something about everything there. Robert Moats, PE, CIH, CSP

My 11 year old daughter loved this book. She has been worried about staying home alone, and this book has given her the confidence she needed. It includes lots of suggestions for things to do by yourself, as well as good advice/directions about how to stay safe.

Good book bought it for my daughter she really enjoyed reading it. A+++++++++

I loved this book! It tell you great tips for staying home alone and what to do if you need help. I would recommend this book! -kristen

System Safety Engineering And Risk Assessment is an excellent reference on how to engineer safety and manage risk. The clarity of the writing combined with understandable examples makes this book an outstanding text for a course on engineering safe systems.

This book starts by introducing the need and benefits of implementing a system safety program providing context for the later material. Key safety concepts and definitions are then introduced with references to relevant government and industry standards. A pragmatic discussion follows on the necessity of management and organizational support for an effective safety program. The book then details specific techniques for hazard identification and analysis including HAZOP, fault tree, FMEA, FMECA and a few lesser known methodologies. The overview of human factors analysis begins with the observation that "human error is an out-of-tolerance action within the human machine system." This discussion provides a comprehensive framework for the more advanced material referenced in the section. The only weakness was the following section on software safety, which lacked detailed descriptions of state-of-practice analysis techniques. The analysis section is strengthened by the discussion of accident and failure reporting systems and the associated databases that are used to support accident and reliability analyses. The final chapters of the book provide a practical discussion of how to manage risk using tailored versions the various techniques introduced in the previous sections.

All in all, this is a worthwhile reference for systems engineers and safety officials.

I used this book to teach system safety engineering to graduate students. The author provides the reader a background into system safety that lays the ground work for a functional and proactive system safety process. This book provided workable examples to the student for comprehension of the material. Students as well as the instructor had a better understanding of system safety and the integration of the processes into general industrial and avaition safety programs/processes. I wish I had this book when I was trying to explain to my management what system safety engineering was and how it benefits the engineering department.

In this book, Nicholas Bahr has taken the complex discipline of systems safety and made it accessible in a logical, useful format. The book is clear and well illustrated (although a couple of the charts are a bit cumbersome and unwieldy), and calls upon numerous case studies to illustrate key points. There are separate chapters of Hazard Analysis, Fault Tree Analysis, Safety Analysis in Engineering, and Safety Management.

While useful for engineers (particularly in the chemical processing or nuclear fields), this book is written in comprehensible terms that do not require an engineering background or technical education to understand. In fact, I believe that the biggest beneficiaries of this book are not engineers at all, but non-technical managers, who desperately need to understand safety systems, but often don't. In fact the chapter on Safety Management should be required reading for any manager in a safety critical environment, as it is an excellent "how to" guide to safety management of complex systems. This chapter has examples of correct safety management, and more importantly, excellent examples of the perils of management unwillingness to prioritize safety. The case study of the Nypro UK cyclohexane plant explosion in Flixborough, England is the best detailed, and has universal applications to safety systems across varying industries. The loss of the shuttle 'Challenger' is also reviewed from a systems safety vantage point, but while there are many errors to be analyzed and learned from there, more of the lessons are industry specific than are the lessons from the Flixborough example.

I used this book in a graduate class on systems safety. This is one of the best safety books I have seen, and is the most concise text on systems safety that I have ever read, far better, for instance, than the works of Perrow. Mr. Bahr is to be commended for his work; I look forward to reading more by him in the future.

This excellent book could save lives. It's invaluable. The author's dry wit spices up the science. This book just plain makes sense.

This is the most important book ever written on the subject matter. It is technical enough to be a resource to experts in the field, but accessible and worthwhile for anyone who drives a car.

This is the definitive work on traffic safety. Its filled with brilliant analysis of the most important traffic safety issues. Scientific evidence is presented clearly and convincingly. A must read for anyone in the field or anyone interested in human safety.

The work presented in this book stands as a shining example of how social science research should be conducted. The authors' ability to set aside their preconceptions regarding gun control establishes their qualifications as preeminent researchers in the field and true professionals (as though this was necessary). Contemporary social science research is too often lacking in integrity; thankfully, these practitioners have made a contribution to the truth rather than some political ideology. The work cannot be classified as conservative or liberal. Rather, it represents a full and exhaustive exploration of the dynamics associated with the gun control debate as it is framed today. True students of the field should be grateful.

Intending to build the case for comprehensive federal gun restrictions, the Carter administration handed out a major gun control research grant to sociology Professor James D. Wright, and his colleagues Peter Rossi and Kathleen Daly. Wright was already on record as favoring much stricter controls, and he and his colleagues were recognized as among sociology's brightest stars. Rossi, a University of Massachusetts professor, would later become President of the American Sociology Association. Wright, who formerly served as Director of the Social and Demographic Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, now teaches at Tulane. Daly was a relatively young scholar at the time, but she has since gone on to win the Hindelang Prize from the American Society of Criminology. The Hindelang Prize is awarded for the most significant contribution to criminology in a three-year period. Daly is the most recent winner, for her studies of women's issues. Anyway, Wright, Rossi, and Daly were asked to survey the state of research regarding the efficacy of gun control, presumably to show that gun control worked, and America needed more of it. But when Wright, Rossi, and Daly produced their report for the National Institute of Justice, they delivered a document quite different from the one they had expected to write. Carefully reviewing all existing research to date, the three scholars found no persuasive scholarly evidence that America's 20,000 gun control laws had reduced criminal violence. For example, the federal Gun Control Act of 1968, which banned most interstate gun sales, had no discernible impact on the criminal acquisition of guns from other states. Washington, D.C.'s 1977 ban on the ownership of handguns which had not already been registered in the District was not linked to any reduction in gun crime in the District. Even Detroit's law providing mandatory sentences for felonies committed with a gun was found to have no effect on gun crime patterns, in part because judges would often reduce the sentence for the underlying offense in order to balance out the mandatory two-year extra sentence for use of a gun. The Wright/Rossi/Daly team exploded scores of other gun control myths. They discussed the data showing that gun owners-rather then being a violent, aberrant group of nuts-were at least as psychologically stable and morally sound as the rest of the population. Polls claiming to show that a large majority of the population favored "more gun control" were debunked as being the product of biased questions, and of the fact that most people have no idea how strict gun laws already are. As the scholars frankly admitted, they had started out their research as gun control advocates, and had been forced to change their minds by a careful review of the evidence. Review by Dave Kopel, Independence Institute, http://i2i.org.

Interviewing felony prisoners in ten state correctional systems in 1981, Wright and Rossi found extensive information suggesting that gun control laws have relatively little effect on violent criminals. For example, only 12% of criminals, and only 7% of the criminals specializing in handgun crime, had acquired their last crime handgun at a gun store. Of those, about a quarter had stolen the gun from a store; a large number of the rest, Wright and Rossi suggested, had probably procured the gun through a legal surrogate buyer, such as a girlfriend with a clean record. Fifty-six percent of the prisoners said that a criminal would not attack a potential victim who was known to be armed. Seventy-four percent agreed with the statement that "One reason burglars avoid houses where people are at home is that they fear being shot during the crime." Thirty-nine percent of the felons had personally decided not to commit a crime because they thought the victim might have a gun, and eight percent said the experience had occurred "many times." Criminals in states with higher civilian gun ownership rates worried the most about armed victims. Despite the popular myth that criminals preferred small, inexpensive handguns (so-called "Saturday Night Specials" or "junk guns"), the felony prisoners preferred larger, more powerful handguns-equal to the guns which they expected the police would have. Although the criminals rarely bought guns in gun stores, the overwhelming majority stated that obtaining a gun after their release from prison would be a simple project, which might take a few hours to a few weeks. Armed and Dangerous has lost none of its importance. In the years since it was published, no-one has done any research on criminal gun use and acquisition that is even half as significant or detailed. Armed and Dangerous is also a great book to give a library. The new paperback includes an introduction by Jim Wright that discusses the reaction to Armed and Dangerous in the years since its first publication.

Dr. Rudofossi's text outlines the essential components that Clinician's must understand, when working with law enforcement officer/patients. He gives practical, clear cut suggestions, to add to any Clinician's therapeutic role repetoire. A must read! June Siegel MSW,LCSW

Dr. Rudofossi takes us all on one of the darkest journeys ever. Consistently jolting and yet thoroughly professional all the way through. I can't wait for the follow up to this book.

"Dr. Daniel Rudofossi presents rare insights and demonstrates extraordinary clinical skills in his colossal work, Working with Traumatized Police-Officer Patients. He offers originality and creatively blends existing therapeutic modalities into his eco-ethological approach, which establishes the dignity and prizes the uniqueness of each individual officer-patient who has suffered Complex PTSD. Written by an insider-who was the street cop and became the cop-doc-this treatise will be an invaluable training manual for those attempting to work with traumatized public safety professionals. May it serve to heal the invisible wounds suffered by many in their tour of duty to protect public safety."--(Ann V. Graber, Ph.D., Author, Viktor Frankl's Logotherapy)

Now in a newly revised third edition incorporating most current information from the American College of Sports Medicine, ACSM's Health/Fitness Facility Standards and Guidelines is a straightforward explanation of the proper standards and guidelines to follow in creating and operating health and fitness facilities. ACSM's Health/Fitness Facility Standards and Guidelines covers all aspects of facility management, recommendations concerning technological advances such as automated external defibrillators, ACSM position statements and information from "ACSM's Guidelines for Exercise Testing an Prescription (2006)", and much more. The appendices and supplements outweigh the main text, offering everything from dimensions and markings for pools and courts or fields to illumination requirements for different competitive levels of indoor tennis play to sample preventive maintenance schedules for various types of equipment. An absolute "must-have" for anyone responsible for fitness facilities, from private gyms to community, school, workplace, hotel, and spa facilities.

This is the gold standard of care for any personal trainer, gym, healthclub, even chiropractic rehab facility, PT's office, etc. One copy should be available for review by the staff. This takes the liability monkey off your back,if of course you have to follow the recommendations. This is a must have for any facility for exercise.

Advances in Neurobehavioral Toxicology : Applications in Environmental and Occupational Health

Applications in Environmental and Occupational Health. Applications of the WHO Neurobehavioral core test battery and other neurobehavioral screening methods

This is a wonderful book for teens. I work with teens and provided a copy of this book to all - they loved it!! It answers the questions that they want to know the answers to - but not sure how to ask. It answers questions that they have had, have and will have. It covers everything teens care about from A-Z. A wonderful resource. If you have a teen, work with teens, or just know a teen, consider this as a gift. This book is a wonderful contribution to the great books by and for African-Americans.

The African-American population has been awaiting this book for a long time! What better way to help keep your teenager safe and informed, especially when you're not around! This magnificent book covers everything, from setting your alarm at night to good grooming and shopping tips. It is well written, clear, concise and easy to read. Each chapter has its own personality and flavor. Your teenager can look up individual subjects or read it like a novel. It promises to give information persuasively, while gently guiding your child in the right direction. I highly recommend this book for all pre-teens, teens and young adults!

This piece of literature tells all, from the use of simple one gas instruments to undertanding Mass Spect readings. If you thought you knew about air monitoring read the book, I gaurantee you will find some excellent information.

As a CIH, I've often wanted a resource that would explain the pros and cons of different air sampling equipment. This book is just that. It embodies the authors' many years of knowledge in the safety field, and is extremely practical.

Curious about whether a 10.6ev or 11.7ev PID is the way to go? This book tells you how to find out! Need to know how accurate and reliable passive sorption tubes are? This book covers that too? Want to know how to use an Hnu or OVA? Check out this book.

This book has been extremely useful for me in real-life settings. I highly recommend it. -Andy Hilliard, PE, CSP Vice President, SCA Environmental ahilliard@sca-enviro.com