Browsing: Health and mental wellbeing | Page 5

Workers with flexible arrangements are far more likely than those with set hours to suffer from insomnia, according to researchers, who suggest more thought needs to go into allocating resources and curtailing demands.

Employers that operate heavy vehicles have been "challenged" to review and overhaul their fatigue management systems, after a company's national operations manager was sentenced to three years' jail for recklessness that led to the deaths of four police officers.

Research spanning 24 years has discovered an increased risk of death from dementia associated with workplace exposures that are also linked to heart and lung-related mortality, underscoring the need to minimise exposure incidents and levels.

A worker's pericarditis from his third COVID-19 vaccination was significantly contributed to by his employment and is compensable, a tribunal has ruled in examining vaccine mandates and the operation of emergency management laws.

Australian researchers have found the rate of same-level falls in workplaces is set to surge among a major group of workers, and urged employers to implement tailored interventions, including for remote-work arrangements.

• Workplace exposure standard for fumes slashed today;
  
• Vic responds to fumes amendment with tips for employers; and
  
• Comcare warns of big fines, reveals manslaughter start date.

An eight-item questionnaire to detect sleep apnoea in at-risk workers has proved to be an effective and low-cost way to screen a workforce for a condition that poses significant safety and health risks, researchers say.

Workplace safety professionals were among the first to foresee the extensive threats created by COVID-19, showing that involving them more in emergency decision-making can facilitate more effective responses for organisations and the community, an international study has found.

Safe Work Australia has committed to immediately drafting changes to the national model WHS laws to reflect the outcomes of yesterday's WHS ministers meeting on engineered stone and other issues. The non-harmonised state of Victoria will make similar changes to its safety legislation.

Australia's WHS ministers have unanimously agreed to prohibit the use, manufacture and supply of engineered stone, under a plan that will be matched with a "complementary customs prohibition" on the material, and new WHS laws for all industries where crystalline silica is present.