Summer 2020: Staying Safe and Healthy at Home

Summer celebrations are going to be different in 2020 while the COVID-19 pandemic prevents Americans from enjoying the usual large holiday gatherings and travel. Many families will spend more of the summer at home than ever before. While in our safe havens, we need to make sure that our homes are free from other common hazards, inside and out.

To recognize the importance of our homes as it relates to our health, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has declared June National Healthy Homes Month. According to HUD, most people spend 70 percent or more of their time inside their home, even when not under stay-at-home restrictions. This statistic is reported in the HUD publication Everyone Deserves a Safe and Healthy Home: a Stakeholder Guide for Protecting the Health of Children and Families, available for sale from the GPO Online Bookstore. This book covers a full range of home safety issues including lead paint, allergens, mold, carbon monoxide, radon, unsafe drinking water, household chemicals, pests, and the dangers of slips and falls. Even a single one of these unhealthy housing problems can endanger residents, especially children and the elderly who are more vulnerable. This stakeholder guide is intended to assist health care professionals, teachers, religious leaders, and others who work with families, but it could also be used by anyone wanting to maintain or improve their residence. Each topic is fully explained including what causes the problem and how to prevent and eliminate it. Included is a room-by-room safety checklist for conducting a complete healthy home assessment for your house or apartment.

Everyone Deserves a Safe and Healthy Home: a Stakeholder Guide for Protecting the Health of Children and Families is also available from GPO’s Catalog of U.S. Government Publications in Spanish.

There is also a companion publication: Everyone Deserves a Safe and Healthy Home: Protect the Health of Children and Families: a Consumer Action Guide. The consumer action guide provides much of the same information as the Stakeholder Guide in a shorter version for homeowners and renters.

In July, Americans will be mark Independence Day with small, at-home celebrations. Due to COVID-19 precautions, many cities and towns have cancelled traditional Fourth of July fireworks shows. As you plan for the holiday, keep your outdoor activities fun and safe with these publications made available from GPO’s Catalog of Government Publications:

  • Fireworks Fact Sheet (U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission). It might be tempting to plan your own fireworks this year, but even legal consumer fireworks can be dangerous. Sparklers burn at very high temperatures and can cause third-degree burns. Illegal fireworks can be deadly. This brochure provides information about using consumer fireworks safely and lists the different types of consumer fireworks permitted in each state.
  • Fireworks Annual Report (U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission). For more in-depth study, the Fireworks Annual Report is available for years 2013 to 2018. Each annual issue describes injuries and deaths associated with fireworks during the calendar year, including statistics that break down injuries by age and gender.
  • Grilling Fire Safety (U.S. Fire Administration). This flyer has tips for keeping outdoor cooking in the safe zone. Also available in Spanish.
  • Summer Safety Tips (U.S. Fire Administration). Whether you are camping, swimming, or biking, this flyer will help you do it safely.
  • Summertime Burn Safety (U.S. Fire Administration). This is a quick checklist for preventing and treating the common burn injuries of summer. Also available in Spanish.

The GPO Online Bookstore – Easy Access to Federal Publications

HOW DO I OBTAIN THESE RESOURCES?

Sign up to receive promotional bulletin emails from the US Government Online Bookstore.

For the free resources, click on the links above within this blog post.

Shop Online Anytime: You can buy a vast majority of eBooks or print publications —with FREE Standard Shipping worldwide— from the U.S. Government Online Bookstore at https://bookstore.gpo.gov.

Visit our Retail Store: To buy or order a copy of any print editions from this collection at GPO’s retail bookstore at 710 North Capitol Street NW, Washington, DC 20401, open Monday–Friday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., except Federal holidays, Call (202) 512-0132 for information or to arrange in-store pick-up(s).

Order by Phone or Email: Call our Customer Contact Center Monday through Friday, 8 am to 4:30 pm Eastern (except US Federal holidays). From US and Canada, call toll-free 1.866.512.1800. DC or International customers call +1.202.512.1800.  Email orders to ContactCenter@gpo.gov

Visit a Federal depository library: Search for U.S. Government publications in a nearby Federal depository library. You can find the records for most titles in GPO’s Catalog of U.S. Government Publications.

Find more than a million official Federal Government publications from all three branches at www.govinfo.gov.

About the author: Blogger contributor Caroline Hassler is a Supervisory Librarian in GPO’s Library Services & Content Management office.

2 Responses to Summer 2020: Staying Safe and Healthy at Home

  1. Lucas Scott says:

    Thanks for these resources.

    Like

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

%d bloggers like this: