Cancer, Reproductive, Cardiovascular, and Other Chronic Disease Prevention (CRC) Cross-Sector Council

The NORA Cancer, Reproductive, Cardiovascular, and Other Chronic Disease Prevention (CRC) Cross-Sector Council brings together individuals and organizations to share information, form partnerships, and promote adoption and dissemination of solutions that work. It was formed 2016 for the third decade of NORA. The Council seeks to facilitate the most important research, understand the most effective intervention strategies, and learn how to implement those strategies to achieve sustained improvements in workplace practice. Contact the Co-chair or NORA Coordinator with any questions, comments, or to volunteer.

Meetings and News

New Podcast Series on Workplace Hazards for Pregnant Women
A new podcast seriesexternal icon has started on the “Mother to Baby” website as part of a collaboration with the CDC National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities and the NORA Chronic Disease Program. Please listen as Dr. Jennita Reefhuis (CDC) and Dr. Carissa Rocheleau (NIOSH/NORA) describe workplace exposures at hospitals, veterinary clinics, and airlines that pregnant women may encounter. Additional episodes are in the works, so stay tuned!

Stress Among First Responders
The CRC webinar “Stress and Cardiovascular Disease among First Responders: Data from the BCOPS Studyexternal icon” is now available. Police officers, firefighters, and other first responders encounter stress, shift work, and long hours as part of their job. The Buffalo Cardio-Metabolic Occupational Police Stress (BCOPS) study is a long-term study that looks at the health effects linked to these job-related factors, including outcomes like hypertension, cardiac system dysfunction, and cardiovascular disease. The recorded webinar provides an update on the BCOPS study.

Cross-Sector Description

The CRC Cross-Sector addresses many types of health outcomes, including occupational cancers, adverse reproductive outcomes, and cardiovascular disease among workers well as the evolving areas of occupational neurological and renal disease. Workers across many industry sectors are exposed to agents and workplace factors that may be carcinogens or contribute to adverse reproductive outcomes like birth defects, developmental disorders, spontaneous abortion, low birth weight, preterm birth. Occupational risks for cardiovascular disease are not well understood yet, but evidence suggests that some toxins and non-chemical workplace factors such as physical exertion, shift work, and psychosocial factors (e.g. job strain and other job stressors) may all contribute.

Information is available about the NIOSH CRC Program, which facilitates the work of the Council.

Page last reviewed: May 23, 2022