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healthcare costs

The government and private sector looks to workplace health as becoming a key issue in lowering healthcare costs. On average, the everyday worker spends more than one third of his or her life in the office and it?s only logical that programs at work should tackle employee health as this is shown to lower overall national healthcare costs. A good program at work results into employees being more interested to work, more happy and generally are healthier. You can get the best fruit sydney information by visiting this website.

As said, on a national level workplace health plays a vital role in shaping up a nations healthcare system. The family, relatives and even friends of workers who are taught at the workplace are also enlightened about good health practices. Solving the puzzle that is healthcare becomes easier when government and private companies both address the same issues.

This article discusses common workplace health programs that not just affect companies but entire nations. We take a closer look at health programs aimed to detect and educate about AIDS, breast cancer and cervical cancer, and programs on smoking and eating and nutrition. In the end, readers should have a better understanding of what they can do themselves to promote good health in their own respective fields of work.

While it doesn?t seem very much related to the workplace AIDS is very much a concern throughout the world, and with more and more sexual relationships among coworkers it is important to create employee awareness on the seriousness of AIDS. Employees need to know about the dangers of AIDS, the ways of transmitting it and why safe sex is best. Simple workplace health programs like this can make a huge lasting difference in eliminating AIDS altogether. Visit this site for further information on fruit baskets sydney.

Companies are now filled with women employees from the most menial of jobs to the top of the corporate ladder, and company workplace health programs should reflect this. Issues like breast cancer should be included in any company health initiative. Besides creating awareness, a good idea for companies is to shoulder regular mammography screening for women.

The dangers of cervical cancer and how to prevent it and treat it are some of the things women employees should know. Promoting the cervical cancer vaccine is a another great way in assisting its women workforce. Vaccines for some is enough to prevent cervical cancer, but for some it may not be enough, so the best way is to continue keep the workplace health healthy is by having regular Pap smear screening for women. Sadly, most people know that smoking is bad for their health, yet they continue to take cigarette breaks after cigarette breaks. Because of the stress in the office and how smoking is equated to relieving stress, there is actually more smoking done at work than at other places. Smoking should never be allowed at work as it is proven smoking does not help anybody especially and deteriorates good workplace health.

Eating is one the biggest factors in making us healthy or not and should be part of any company workplace health program. Commercialized food that is filled with sugar, carbs, msg and preservatives really don?t do anything positive for the body. If the company shoulders the meals and snacks of the employee, it is very easy to make sure employees get the healthiest meals and treats.

Workplace health concerns are wide and varied, and cannot be studied in one sitting. It was only with the hopes of a partnership between company and employee that this article was written. As a lasting thought, everyone has to do their part to live healthy lives and no one can do it for them.

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Green homes

In this city on the mend, hundreds of state-of-the-art sustainable, energy-efficient homes are being built in lower-income neighborhoods, a trend that’s outpacing most of the rest of the country.

More than 500 homes are being built with features such as solar panels, rain-catching cisterns and eco-friendly materials in neighborhoods that received the brunt of the damage from the 2005 floods following Hurricane Katrina. Hundreds of other homes are being given green upgrades.

“New Orleans is certainly a leader in that regard,” says Suzanne Watson of the Washington-based American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. “The scale at which they’re doing it is remarkable.”

Green building has traditionally been left to higher-end homes, whose owners can afford the costlier solar panels and other elements, says Forest Bradley-Wright of the New Orleans-based Alliance for Affordable Energy. But as New Orleans began to rebuild, non-profits stepped in with innovative development techniques and eco-friendly plans to rebuild lower-income neighborhoods such as the Lower 9th Ward and Pontchartrain Park, he says.

“The destruction caused by Katrina necessitated almost every one to rethink how to rebuild their home,” Bradley-Wright says.

Other American cities are building sustainable, energy-efficient housing for lower-income families. The Boston Housing Authority will receive $63 million in federal money for energy-efficiency improvements, the largest public-housing project of that kind in U.S. history. And the Seattle Housing Authority is revamping one of its public housing complexes into 1,700 green energy-efficient units.

But it’s rare for a city to develop so many sustainable and affordable single-family homes, such as New Orleans is doing, as opposed to apartment complexes, which is more the national trend, Watson says.

“What’s happening in New Orleans is incredibly impressive. It shows the tenacity of those working there,” says Dana Bourland, a vice president of Enterprise Community Partners, a Maryland-based non-profit that supports affordable housing efforts nationwide.

New Orleans projects include:

• Five sustainable homes, an 18-unit apartment complex and a community center in the Holy Cross section of the Lower 9th Ward developed by California-based Global Green USA.
• 150 eco-friendly homes planned for the Lower 9th Ward by Make It Right, the initiative started by actor Brad Pitt. So far, 34 of the homes have been built.
• Plans to build more than 100 green homes in the city’s Gentilly neighborhood on a $20 million pledge from the New York-based Riggio Foundation.
• More than 150 elevated, energy-efficient homes are being planned for the Pontchartrain Park area, an initiative led by actor Wendell Pierce, a New Orleans native best known for his role in HBO series The Wire.

The completed Lower 9th Ward homes range in price from $120,000 to $160,000 and energy bills are 75% lower than comparable homes, says Jon Sader, Make It Right’s construction director.

One of them went to Neal Dupar, 48, whose previous home was destroyed in August 2005 by more than 10 feet of water. He lives with his wife and five children in a new four-bedroom home with solar paneling and improved insulation on the same lot as his previous home. He pays $300 a month less on energy and water bills than in the old house, he says.

“It’s helped a great deal,” Dupar says. “I’d never be able to afford this on my own.”

Next to Green Homes: New Ideas for Sustainable Living

Window Energy Film

City officials and Los Angeles’s power company are sparring over big increases in electricity rates that the utility says it needs to pay for a push into renewable energy.

So far, the city council is balking at the requests. But both sides agree the utility will need more revenue, making some substantial increases likely later this year.

Los Angeles’s case could serve as a warning to officials in other cities and states who are also trying to change the energy mix of local utilities, substituting more power from renewable sources, such as wind and sun, for power from coal- or gas-burning plants.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the nation’s largest municipal utility, says it needs to collect significantly more money to manage costs associated with an ambitious plan to get more electricity from renewable resources and less from coal.

The utility currently gets about half of its power from coal, an unusually large amount for a utility in California, a state with no significant coal deposits.

The city’s goal is to get 20% of its electricity from green sources by the end of the year, which it is on track to achieve. It hopes to raise that to 35% to 40% by 2020.

Renewable power from sources such as wind turbines and solar farms, however, is considerably more costly than the coal-based electricity it replaces.

The city council had authorized the utility to raise rates 5%, or 0.6 cents a kilowatt hour, on April 1. That plan dissolved Thursday, when the utility’s board instead moved to impose an increase of about 5.7% and was halted by the city council, postponing any action for three months.

Jan Perry, a city council member who is chairwoman of an energy subcommittee, said the appointed utility board “overplayed its hand” in thinking it could ignore the wishes of the city’s elected officials.

Other council members accused the utility of extortion for threatening to withhold a $73 million payment to the city, which is running a deep deficit, until the department gets a satisfactory rate increase.

A looming revenue shortfall at the Los Angeles utility prompted its board last month to demand a double-digit increase of 2.7 cents a kilowatt hour this year, broken into several increases.

The budget crunch stems from lingering effects of high fuel costs two years ago and, more recently, increased purchases of renewable energy. The utility has been unable to charge customers the full amount of its rising costs because the city council has capped rates.

“The utility needs to raise rates. The mayor’s main concern is to make sure the citizens get something back for it, like cleaner energy and green jobs,” said Sarah Hamilton, press secretary for Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

Many businesses oppose rate increases in a weak economy. On Tuesday, the city council heard objections from residents and business owners. A representative of brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev NV, for example, indicated the rate increase could cost it up to $2 million a year.

Others said the city’s goal to generate green jobs was undercut by high electricity prices that would drive businesses from the city.

“We’re going to lose a lot of jobs,” warned Councilman Greig Smith. “And this proposal doesn’t shut down a single coal plant.”