Protect your employees, your customers,
and your brand with
Zero Hour Health

A healthy workforce boosts productivity, lowers absenteeism, fosters a positive work environment, and most importantly, lowers the risk to your company's brand and reputation.

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Trusted by the top names in business + hospitality

Health Crisis Prevention + Management
For Modern Businesses

Whether you have a growing hospitality group or a major nationwide concept, it’s imperative that you protect your reputation and brand loyalty from illness, outbreaks, and other health crises.

Zero Hour Health’s team of advisors will help you prevent and manage your risk so your team can focus on growing the business.

Advisory from the most knowledgeable industry experts, 24/7/365.

Whether it’s navigating a foodborne illness outbreak, receiving guidance on best practices with your local health department, or general questions about your employees’ health, we’re here to keep you, your staff, and your business safe.
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Detecting and preventing illnesses, before they go public.

The best way to stop a crisis is to prevent it from becoming one in the first place. We’ll help you create a culture of safe working, detect problematic illnesses before they spread, and, most importantly, keep your business out of the news.
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Protecting the most important asset in your businesses: your brand.

An outbreak is one of the few crises that can permanently damage a brand. From local news, to the nightly news, to the trading floors, your reputation is the foundation of your business and its value. Protecting that asset is a top priority.
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Screening and assisting the hiring process for at-risk positions.

Whether you need to do physical examinations to ensure a prospective employee can do the job, or your industry regulations call for a battery of exams, we streamline this process and handle it for every step of the way. Save time, hire quicker, and protect yourself against workers' comp claims.
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A suite of services to support every aspect of your operations.

This is just a core breakdown of the main services we provide to our clients. We build highly customized solutions to support any need you have.

ZHH Pro

ZHH Pro is our industry-best advisory service. We tailor our support to solve your most pressing needs, whether you've got 6 locations or 600 locations. We can provide 24/7/365, high-level clinical support to keep your business running.
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Wellness Checks

The single best way to prevent illness in the workplace is to prevent sick employees from showing up in the first place. ZHH Wellness Checks are the best solution to identify and assess potentially sick employees.
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Vaccination Programs

From Flu to Hep A, vaccinations are a vital part of keeping your workforce healthy. We help businesses identify employee immunization history, track their records, and facilitate vaccinations both on-site and off.
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Exams & Regulatory Testing

Ensure that potential employees are fit to perform their roles safely and effectively using our industry-best pre-employment programs. We help employers maintain compliance with stringent industry standards and regulations without adding friction to the hiring process.
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Inbox
October 11, 2024
What meteorology & public health have in common

Hurricane Response:

  • Baxter has resumed shipments of IV products to hospitals after a week-long hold due to their hurricane-damaged North Carolina plant. (Becker’s)
  • A severe solar storm could stress power grids even more, even as millions are still lacking power after back-to-back hurricanes. (AP)
  • Floridians are warned about the dangers of floodwaters, which can cause “life-threatening” bacterial infections in exposed wounds. (Newsweek)
  • Many areas in Florida continue to have boil water orders, and the state has compiled a list updated as of October 10th. (FloridaHealth.gov)

Health News: 

  • California reported two more likely bird flu infections in humans; none are connected, meaning animal-to-human transmission is most likely. (CDPH)
  • The U.S. has its worst whooping cough outbreak in a decade with more than 16,000 cases in 2024, four times as many as this time last year. (NPR)
  • The bakery behind Entenmann’s is pushing back after the FDA asked them not to label foods with sesame allergen warnings if they didn’t have any sesame. (AP)
  • 10 million+ pounds of ready-to-eat meat and poultry products have been recalled due to listeria contamination; BrucePac items are sold as store brands including HEB, Trader Joe’s and Fresh Express.  (CNN)
  • The Rizo-Lopez cheese factory shut down after a years-long Listeria outbreak was linked to their fresh cheeses. (USA Today)
  • Telehealth providers are at risk after ​​pandemic-era rules that allowed them to operate more flexibly are set to end with no new rules in sight. (STAT)
  • Rates of the tick-borne disease Babeosis rose 9% per year from 2015-2022. (CIDRAP)
  • Employer health insurance costs continue to rise at roughly 2x the rate of inflation; an annual family plan at about $25K is about the same price as some new cars. (LinkedIn)
  • Medicare is piloting a program with $2 generic drugs. (Axios)
  • GSK’s RSV vaccine is 43% effective against severe disease even after 3 years. (Reuters)
  • Live Oropouche virus can be found in semen up to 16 days after symptom onset. (CIDRAP)

Mental Health & Substance Use News:

  • Back-to-back hurricanes make people more vulnerable to mental health issues, and prolong the time it takes to recover. (NY Times) 
  • 1 in 5 heat-related deaths involve methamphetamine. (AP)
  • Finding help to get sober is hard, and made even harder for moms in Kentucky. (Washington Post)
  • Almost 3 in 5 adults have been personally affected by suicide, and nearly all agree that more should be done to prevent it. (Roll Call)
  • Colorado’s naloxone fund is drying up, even as opioid settlement money rolls in. (KFF Health News)

If you or someone you know may be considering suicide or need help, call or text 988.

Best Questions:

What’s going on with flu this year? 

Flu season really hasn’t started yet, with national numbers still very low. The flu shot this year is okay, but not great - in the Southern Hemisphere, which has its flu season before ours, this year’s shot reduced the risk for hospitalization among high-risk groups by about 35% (last year’s was about 50%). That doesn’t mean you should skip it - 35% is way better than nothing, and reducing the number of people who have regular seasonal flu can help with everything from hospital capacities to reducing the chances of a bird flu pandemic. There is a new live, attenuated nasal spray approved by the FDA for kids and adults, but Mike Osterholm from CIDRAP doesn’t love its effectiveness for adults. If you always skip the jab because of a fear of needles, this one might be for you, but if you are used to getting your annual flu shot, you might want to stick to that one until we see more data on how well it works in adults. Flu shot uptake is still low overall, less than 10% of Americans have gotten theirs this year, but it’s still somewhat early for maximum flu protection. We generally recommend waiting until flu numbers start to rise, or by Halloween. If you’re a procrastinator who’s willing but not very motivated to go out of your way to get jabbed, do it whenever you can, and get your updated COVID shot at the same time! 

Sources: Osterholm Update, YLE

Hurricane Milton didn’t have huge storm surges as predicted. Should we worry that people will stop taking storms seriously? 

When storms like Hurricane Milton don't hit as hard as expected, there's a risk that people might start underestimating future storms. It's similar to how people react to public health warnings—if the last flu season was mild, some might skip their next flu shot. But just because one storm or flu season isn’t as bad, that doesn’t mean the next one won’t be worse. The key for public health experts and meteorologists alike is to show our work, share our level of uncertainty, and then if we have individual concerns, consider sharing them while making it clear that they’re our own. With Milton, for example, there was a wide band where the hurricane might make landfall. It turned out that the initial predictions were actually pretty spot on, but sharing the uncertainty allowed people north and south of the area to prepare appropriately and decide whether to evacuate. Sharing our concern as individuals can be key, too. A viral video of a meteorologist getting choked up on-air while reporting on the system’s intensity might have done more to convince Floridians to evacuate than any of the actual scientific info that he was reading. Much like public health, it’s a balancing act to share the risks and the uncertainties so that the public retains trust in those reporting the science. But downplaying a potential deadly storm to avoid overreaction could jeopardize lives, and most Floridians, at least, know that mother nature is both hard to predict and a force to be reckoned with. 

Sources: USA Today, NYT

Best Read:

Dr. Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist that we regularly read and re-post in this newsletter, shares more on this theme of the similarities between weather forecasts and public health. Really, both are about sharing the science, imperfect as it may be, in such a way that the public can protect themselves:

Want People to Embrace Public Health? Make It More Like Weather Forecasting. - NYT Opinion, Dr. Caitlin Rivers

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