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 Home > Regional MRC Coordinators > Bruce I. Marganoff > Region II Newsletters > Region II Newsletter - Late Fall 2005
Regional Volunteer Training ConferenceThe first Region II Volunteer Training Conference was held in Manalapan, NJ on October 22, 2005. The focus of the conference was to provide new volunteer members with training components of the MRC program. The program was “kicked-off” by Commander Robert J. Tosatto, U.S. Public Health Service. He is the Medical Reserve Corps Executive Officer. Commander Tosatto was followed by New Jersey Health Commissioner, Dr. Fred Jacobs, who greeted the audience with acknowledgements of the important role they played in providing emergency assistance across the Region. Participants attend several fixed topic presentations in the morning. Additionally, they chose from a series of optional programs based on their preference for additional training in the afternoon. Program evaluation was conducted, and the resulting data indicated that our participants were very pleased with the conference program. Many responded that they wanted additional MRC conferences for training. We are looking into holding additional programs in the near future. We are considering the next training program to service the MRC Site Coordinators and hope to gather input as to possible agenda items in the near future. Free Webcast Program AvailableTopic: Emergency Transportation Operations—Evacuations See the Emergency Transportation Operations—Evacuations Webcast. This session will provide an overview of the state of understanding with respect to Hurricane Evacuation Plans and Policies. It also will address efforts to capture lessons learned and major initiatives to improve the operation of the transportation system in the event of an evacuation. New CD Distributed to MRC Site CoordinatorsPresident Bush and Admiral Richard Carmona have been videotaped for an MRC presentation, which is now being delivered to MRC Site Coordinators. Hopefully, this CD will assist local units in communicating the message of the MRC and provide impact to their local programs. Reminder for New MRC SitesA Technical Assistance CD is available and was distributed to the older sites. This CD will act as a guide to any new MRC site. Coordinators can obtain copies from the Region II Coordinator, Bruce Marganoff, at bruce.marganoff@hhs.gov. Fatalities and Accidents Among Volunteers*The following article is an excerpt from a full report. Fatal Injuries Among Volunteer Workers—United States, 1993–2002 In the United States, an estimated 59 million persons spend a median of 52 hours each year volunteering, most often in religious, educational, youth, or community service organizations; volunteers commonly perform activities such as coaching, campaigning, fundraising, delivering goods, and serving on boards or neighborhood associations (1). Few studies have analyzed fatal injuries to volunteers, and studies have typically focused on a specific volunteer group (e.g., Peace Corps). To characterize fatal injuries among volunteers in the United States, CDC analyzed data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI)* for 1993–2002. This report describes the results of that analysis, which indicated that a total of 501 persons died from injuries sustained while volunteering during this period; most often these persons were firefighters and other volunteers who were operating motor vehicles at the time of death. To reduce these fatalities, organizations that rely on volunteers need to provide adequate training (e.g., defensive driving and recognition of evacuation signals) on the basis of well-communicated and enforced safety and health policies. CFOI classifies employee status into one of seven categories: 1) active-duty armed forces, 2) self-employed, 3) work in family business, 4) work for pay or compensation, 5) volunteer, 6) off-duty police, or 7) not reported. CFOI includes fatalities to volunteer workers if they were performing the same duties or functions as paid employees and they met the CFOI work-relationship definition. † For this study, deaths were included if the decedent's employment status category was marked "volunteer." Excluded were deaths resulting from the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. After numbers of deaths were obtained from CFOI, rates of death among volunteers were calculated by using estimates of median annual volunteer hours worked from the September 2002 Current Population Survey (CPS) volunteer supplemental survey§ (2) and converting those hours to full-time equivalents (FTEs) (i.e., 2,000 hours worked per person per year). CPS defines a volunteer as a person who performed unpaid activities for an organization (3). During 1993–2002, three occupations accounted for approximately half of the 501 fatal injuries to volunteers: firefighters, 185 deaths (37%); nonconstruction laborers, 35 (7%); and pilots/navigators, 24 (5%). The remaining fatalities (all <4%) were distributed across 13 occupations (Table 1). The single most common volunteer activity at the time of death was firefighting, for which 76 deaths (15%) were recorded. Driving a motor vehicle (e.g. automobile, truck, or farm vehicle) was recorded in 100 (21%) of the fatalities (Table 1). Under the system used by BLS to classify industry sectors, 240 (48%) deaths related to volunteer work occurred in public administration (including firefighting), 154 (31%) in services, and 23 (5%) in agricultural forestry and fishing. Median age of victims at the time of death was 41 years; 436 (87%) of the decedents were male. The overall rate of death among volunteers was 3.2 per 100,000 FTE population (Table 2). Among 189 volunteer workers aged <34 years, 103 (54%) were volunteer firefighters or firefighting supervisors. The fatal injury rates for volunteer workers aged >35 years were lower when compared with the overall volunteer death rate. The rates among volunteers aged 20–24 and 25–34 years were 7.4 and 6.5 per 100,000 FTE population, respectively, more than twice the overall volunteer death rate and higher than the 1993–2002 average annual fatality rate for all workers aged 20–24 and 25–34 years of 3.5 and 3.9 per 100,000 employed, respectively (2). Need Technical Assistance?The MRC Web site contains a series of files which have been organized to provide technical assistance, especially for the new sites that are in the process of organizing their units. The following information is posted on the MRC Web site and can be accessed from: http://www.medicalreservecorps.gov/page.cfm?pageID=11.
Some Humor Related to Avian FluBy Karen HerzogMilwaukee Journal Sentinel MILWAUKEE—While President Bush scrambles to ward off an avian-flu pandemic, the world's largest sauerkraut producer, tucked amid the glacial lakebeds of rural Wisconsin, is sitting atop a bumper crop of one possible preventative. That's right: sauerkraut. An international buzz is surrounding the unassuming fermented cabbage. Scientists at Seoul National University in South Korea fed an extract of kimchi, a spicy Korean variant of sauerkraut, to 13 chickens infected with avian flu, and a week later, 11 of the birds started to recover, according to a report by the BBC Network. "Unlike the government, we've got the preventative, and 115,000 tons of it in Wisconsin alone," said Ryan Downs, owner and general manager of Great Lakes Kraut Co., which has sauerkraut factories in Bear Creek and Shiocton, Wis., and in Shortsville, N.Y. Downs said more extensive scientific research is needed to prove any curative link to avian flu, but he's more than happy to tout kraut as a healthful part of any diet. "People are starting to realize kraut is a pretty doggone good food," Downs said when contacted about the South Korean study. "We're ready to help keep the world healthy." Several television and radio stations across the United States have picked up the BBC story, said Steve Lundin, spokesman for Frank's Sauerkraut, based in Fremont, Ohio. After a Minneapolis CBS affiliate did its own story on sauerkraut's potential in the battle against avian flu, Frank's checked 54 Twin City area stores it supplies, and found an 850 percent spike in overall sauerkraut sales, Lundin said. "People will do whatever they can if they can't rely on the government to provide them with a vaccine or other preventative," Lundin said South Koreans reportedly are eating more kimchi since news of the study came out. But Korean researchers acknowledged that if kimchi actually caused the effects they observed, it was unclear why Men's Health magazine fed the sauerkraut buzz in its November issue, suggesting Americans put together pandemic kits containing a few cans of sauerkraut, among other nonperishable foods, because—like kimchi—it is packed with lactic-acid bacteria "shown by Korean researchers to speed recovery of chickens infected with avian flu." Another recently released study at the University of New Mexico indicates that sauerkraut may reduce the risk of breast cancer by up to 74 percent. That study set out to determine why the risk of breast cancer nearly triples in Polish women who immigrate to the United States of the hundreds of Polish women and Polish-born U.S. immigrants observed in the study, those who ate four or more servings of sauerkraut and cabbage per week during adolescence were 74 percent less likely to develop breast cancer than those who ate 1.5 or fewer servings per week. Announcement: International Society of First RespondersThe First Responder Training Center for Homeland Security (FRTC.net) is excited to announce that we will become the International Society of First Responders (isofr.org) as of January 1, 2006. The International Society of First Responders (ISOFR) will be the largest international organization that includes all First Responders of all disciplines. We will continue to offer the same access to thousands of documents, interesting current events and forums for our members to discuss these topics. We have also listed sections for job listings and a links section with many websites that we believe will be of interest to our members. Currently we have over 1,000 members from around the world and have had over 75,000 hits to FRTC.net. We expect these numbers to grow significantly once we make the change to the International Society of First Responders. However, before we make this change, we would like to make an exciting offer to all of our current members. Anyone who is currently a member or who joins FRTC.net before January 31, 2006 will receive Charter Member Status. Charter members will receive recognition of this status. This is a very special offer that we are extending to our current members to thank them for helping us to help First Responders secure our nation. The ISOFR is also very concerned for the needs of first responders. Therefore, we will be offering many additional benefits, such as discounted healthcare and insurance. We also plan, in the near future, to hold conferences and trade shows that will be of great interest to First Responders of all disciplines. Don’t let this exciting opportunity pass you up. Even if you are not yet a member, you still have the opportunity to become a Charter Member by signing up for free membership to frtc.net before January 31, 2006. We look forward to having you as a member. Sincerely, Last Updated on 8/14/2006 |
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