Browsing: Health and mental wellbeing

This Thursday is national R U OK? Day, but workers are being urged to "connect with their colleagues and let them know they're here to hear them, every day of the year".

There remains a lack of awareness and concern about the serious health dangers posed by welding fumes, an important and timely Australian study has found, with stakeholders noting industry-wide education and legislative changes are needed to remove barriers to the use of proper safety controls.

A major employer should consider introducing a "points system" for workers' traumatic exposures, and prescribing welfare measures for workers under scrutiny to avoid "idiosyncratic or poor exercise of discretion", a coronial inquest into the suicide deaths of four policemen has recommended.

Printer toner and mould are among a range of workplaces substances that can trigger an abnormal autoimmune response in workers and lead to the development of a serious inflammatory disease, UK researchers have found.

All of Australia's eight harmonised WHS jurisdictions have now formally applied or committed to adopting provisions explicitly requiring PCBUs to manage psychosocial risks through a risk management process.

Complying with a business's WHS duties includes ensuring workers working from home "are not forgotten" under the assumption they will "reach out if they need anything", a senior employment and safety lawyer has told a workplace mental wellbeing webinar.

Psychosocial hazards are more challenging for employers to tackle than physical risks for many reasons, but there are also similarities in how they can be addressed, including through prevention-is-better-than-cure and early-intervention approaches, which will nearly always yield better outcomes, according to senior organisational psychologists.

In a rare case, an employer has been prosecuted and fined for workplace health and safety breaches after high levels of the hazardous substance lead were detected in the blood of four of its workers.

Australia has taken a significant step towards the blanket ban of certain silica-containing workplace products, with the Australian Labor Party declaring the ban "necessary" under an amended WHS resolution.

A unique study of "shift work tolerance" has identified the types of workers that are most likely to suffer from serious intolerance symptoms, highlighting the need to consider occupation type and work context when tailoring work schedules to individuals.