gender – Page 9 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

Is this how safety should be promoted?

One of the first OHS trade exhibitions for 2011 in Australia starts today. Exhibitions like Safety In Action are the best opportunities for many health and safety professionals, representatives and students to update their product knowledge. It is usually here where one finds out about non-steel capped safety footwear, new fall harnesses or the latest interlock devices. But do these innovative products needs to be promoted by scantily clad women as in the picture on the right?

This has been a constant annoyance at trade exhibitions for some time and, in fact, some exhibitions in Australia in 2010 received complaints about this type of promotional strategy. Scantily clad women do attract the attention of potential clients, particularly in male-dominated industries, but there is considerable debate about whether the strategy promotes the product or the breasts. Continue reading “Is this how safety should be promoted?”

New books – South African nursing and a Canadian perspective

This week two new OHS books came across my desk unbidden. Both are very good but have very different contexts and both were published by Baywood Publishing Company Inc.

“Who Is Nursing Them? It is Us.” “Neoliberalism, HIV/AIDS, and the Occupational Health and Safety of South African Public Sector Nurses” by Jennifer R Zelnick

Northern Exposure – A Canadian Perspective on Occupational Health and Environment by David Bennett

South Africa is an exotic foreign land to me. I am aware of the basic political issues of the country for the last 30 years but, in terms of OHS, I know there have been some major mining incidents and that HIV/AIDS is a major occupational and social challenge. Zelnick’s book illustrates clearly the difficulty of tackling a workplace risk that is also a hot, contentious public health and political issue. Continue reading “New books – South African nursing and a Canadian perspective”

ICAP Congress of Applied Psychology is a neglected OHS resource

In July 2010, Melbourne Australia is hosting the 2010 conference of the International Congress of Applied Psychology. What was an OHS consultant at this conference? The question should be why wasn’t OHS consultants at this conference?

This conference is not about workplace safety, per se. It is about how people think and communicate. It provides research (some would say evidence), often about how people relate to each other at work. The exciting content of this ICAP Conference makes the Safety In Action Conference look like a history lesson.

The conference has made the full program and the speaker abstracts online, for free. Both are big PDF files but are excellent resources for those OHS professionals looking for the latest research into bullying, driver safety, health & wellbeing, organisational behaviour, leadership, fatigue, stress and other issues. Continue reading “ICAP Congress of Applied Psychology is a neglected OHS resource”

Heart disease risk findings in women

The May 2010 edition of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine includes an important report about the increase of heart disease risk in young women. There is often a lot of reports into the cardiovascular health of men so this report is very useful.

The basic findings of the report are:

“Nurses who indicated that their work pressures were a little too high were 25% more likely to have ischaemic heart disease as those who said their work pressures were manageable and appropriate.

But those who felt work pressures were much too high were almost 50% more likely to have ischaemic heart disease. After taking account of risk factors for heart disease, such as smoking and lifestyle, the risk fell to 35%, but still remained significant.” Continue reading “Heart disease risk findings in women”

Shift work research findings are grounds for big concern

A scientific symposium held in Canada in April 2010 has raised some serious concerns about the health impacts of shift work. Some of the evidence has existed for a while but collecting it all together makes one wonder how companies can justify shift work in the face of such high risks to workers’ health.

From the evidence presented at the symposium, workers will be tired at work when working shift work and are more likely to be injured than those on day shift. Some workers have an increased risk of breast cancer. Foetal growth in some pregnant women may be impeded. Circadian disruption may encourage the growth of tumours and an international agency is convinced sufficiently of the risks to determine that shift work itself is probably carcinogenic.

The Occupational Cancer Research Centre and the Institute for Work & Health should be applauded for making the evidence presented at the symposium publicly accessible. Continue reading “Shift work research findings are grounds for big concern”

Canadian research shows occupational link to breast cancer

“Certain occupational exposures appear to increase the risk of developing postmenopausal breast cancer”, is a conclusion reached by Canadian researchers and released in April 2010 edition of the Journal of Occupational & Environmental Medicine.

The researchers acknowledged that “some findings might be due to chance or to undetected bias some findings might be due to chance or to undetected bias”, but there is enough evidence to generate concern in occupational sectors and, often, the media shows increased interest in breast cancer research.

Several Australian scientists have advised caution on interpreting the research findings. Continue reading “Canadian research shows occupational link to breast cancer”

Promising work flexibility and health research doesn’t go anywhere

“A new evidence review* suggests that giving employees more flexibility over their work schedules is likely to boost their health as judged by measures like blood pressure and stress. But interventions that are motivated or dictated by the needs of the employer, such as cutting hours, either have no effect on employee health or make it worse.

“Control at work is good for health,” said review co-author Clare Bambra, a researcher at Durham University, in England. “Given the absence of ill health effects associated with employee-controlled flexibility and the evidence of some positive improvements in some health outcomes,” Bambra said, more flexibility in work schedules “has the potential to promote healthier workplaces and improve work practices.”

The above quote indicates that new evidence may help all of us in assessing the benefits or otherwise of allowing employees to telework, or of readjusting work practices to improve health and safety at work.

BUT

an article issued in support of the research clearly identifies the risks of drawing almost any firm conclusions from the evidence other than that more research is required: Continue reading “Promising work flexibility and health research doesn’t go anywhere”

Category: gender

Is this how safety should be promoted?

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New books – South African nursing and a Canadian perspective

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ICAP Congress of Applied Psychology is a neglected OHS resource

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Heart disease risk findings in women

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Shift work research findings are grounds for big concern

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Canadian research shows occupational link to breast cancer

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Promising work flexibility and health research doesn’t go anywhere

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