Browsing: Emerging risks | Page 8

Occupational stress, unclean workplace toilets and prioritising tasks over fluid intake are putting female workers at risk of debilitating symptoms, a major study has found.

A much higher number of workplace types than expected has been linked to significant infectious disease risks, highlighting the need for more widespread preventive actions.

Employers are now expected to take greater ownership of the WHS challenges posed by global supply chain pressures and changing technologies - an expectation that will be enforced by regulators under Australia's new 10-year WHS strategy, which identifies six key emerging issues.

Employers have been urged to better train logistics personnel to recognise and report potential chemical hazards, following an incident where a worker suffered severe lung damage from an inorganic chemical compound used as a preservative agent in shipping containers.

Employers have been urged to learn from, persist with and improve on the safety strategies they implemented for the COVID-19 pandemic, and warned against reverting to past practices that will alienate workers in the post-COVID era.

• Everyday object causes numerous workplace fires; and
  
• Unused seatbelt linked to one of three recent work deaths.

• Numerous duty holders fined, common safety breaches revealed; and
  
• World-first WHS guidelines for cobots released in NSW.

European researchers have confirmed, from a study of more than 400,000 workers, that a common disabling hand disorder can be caused by manual work. They identify those most at risk and say their findings should inform workplace safety strategies.

Australian researchers have identified factors contributing to the heightened risk of self-harm among workers' compensation recipients and others with disabling work injuries, and say there are numerous intervention opportunities, including for employers, "along the pathway between work disability and suicide".

A major law firm has implemented special WHS procedures for its lawyers to respond to clients threatening suicide, self-harm and violence, and provides them with vicarious trauma training, to protect them from psychological injury.