NIOSH has announced that beginning April 2014, it will offer a series of free and confidential health screenings to coal miners in Oklahoma, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, southern Utah and southern Colorado. The screenings will be aimed at detecting coal workers' pneumoconiosis, also called black lung, a serious disease caused by inhalation of respirable coal mine dust.
The screenings have been introduced as part of NIOSH's Enhanced Coal Workers' Health Surveillance Program and will be provided through a mobile testing unit at convenient community and mine locations.
For more information about black lung disease and the Enhanced Coal Workers' Health Surveillance Program, click here.
A Blog From the American Society of Safety Engineers