Already a member? Log in here
Category: depression
Real men and work-related suicide
Recently Huffington Post Australia posted a video about male suicides called “Men are killing themselves to be real men”. Many of the speakers talked about their experiences at work or with work. The video is highly recommended.
SafetyAtWorkBlog had the opportunity to talk with the Associate Video Editor, Emily Verdouw. Below is an edited transcript.
Already a member? Log in here
Research into “gross under-reporting” of illness and injuries
There has been a lot of discussion recently about occupational health and safety (OHS) data. This article is another because the issue is critical for understanding OHS, for planning for the future and managing productivity.
On May 1 2017, the University of South Australia issued a media release about research by Amy Zadow. It opened with the following
“Accidents leading to work injuries cost an estimated $57 billion in Australia and new research from the University of South Australia shows workplaces are unlikely to be adequately addressing injury prevention because management decisions are informed by inaccurate data.”
Already a member? Log in here
Trade unions offer alternative, more accurate(?) workplace death statistics
The Victorian Trades Hall Council (VTHC) indirectly acknowledged the ILO theme for World Day for Safety and Health at Work in its media release for International Workers Memorial Day 2017. The ILO was calling for more, and better, data on workplace injuries and illnesses. VTHC questioned the official workplace fatality numbers issued by the government. It stated:
“A VTHC analysis shows that in 2016-17 over 200 Victorians died as a direct result of Workplace injury or illness, although the government’s official tally for the year is just 26.”
This disparity needs to be discussed across jurisdictions because occupational health and safety (OHS) data has always been incomplete, a fact acknowledged by many government inquiries in Australia for many years.
Already a member? Log in here
When Work Kills – new research on workplace suicides
There are many advocates of the importance of a mental health and wellbeing in workplaces. But few of them address the worst-case scenario for workplace mental health of work-related suicides. In some cases, the mental health advocates are overly cautious about even speaking the reality, which does not help reduce mental health stigma.
In 2016 Professor Stewart Clegg, of UTS Business School said that
“That work can kill the will to live is a fundamental ethical problem that we must attend to…”
New research from the UK provides a useful summary of the work-related and workplace suicides in Europe with important lessons of where precarious employment and the “gig economy” could lead.
Already a member? Log in here
More books on the Christmas list
There were three books that I left off my Christmas/Summer reading list. Each of them important for my occupational health and safety (OHS) professional development and personal curiosity.
The first is Rethink – The Surprising History of New Ideas by Steven Poole. This books looks at what we think are new ideas and sees the precursors or the ideas’ previous appearances. I was attracted to this perspective because I am seeing a lot of new ideas in OHS that are familiar and similar to what has come before. Continue reading “More books on the Christmas list”
Firefighting mental health report leaked
The Herald-Sun newspaper has released the final report into the mental health and suicide rate of Victorian metropolitan firefighters.
The report, authored by Dr Peter Cotton, found that the issues uncovered in the review of firefighters in the Metropolitan Fire Brigade (MFB) are not dissimilar from the findings of other inquiries into emergency service organisations like the police or the ambulance service.
Already a member? Log in here