Several years ago the board of WorkSafe Victoria decided to fund a $A600 million health assessment program for workers from the workers’ compensation fund. The WorkHealth program has not been without its critics but WorkSafe announced this week that 1 in 4 Victorian workers have participated in the WorkHealth program. Given this significance I undertook a work … Continue reading “Is fat the past tense of fit? WorkHealth assessment”
It is common for companies to invest in expensive office furniture in the belief that the furniture will encourage the worker to undertake tasks more safely. In most circumstances, this is a waste of money and a major distraction from managing safety throughout workplaces. The safety message is also being confused by some OHS regulators. … Continue reading “Ergonomics advice does not always reflect the reality”
A curious workplace safety and industrial relations issue has appeared in the Golden Circle factory in Queensland as reported in the Courier-Mail. 57-year-old forklift driver, Lance Pedersen has been sacked because he was found to be morbidly obese and with osteoarthritis in his knees. The newspaper article raises many personnel management issues and there are sure to be more issues that … Continue reading “Eliminate the safety risk – sack the worker”
A link to an article of sound ergonomic advice was emailed to SafetyAtWorkBlog in early April 2010 suggesting readers may be interested. The article is entitled “The Ultimate Guide to Ergonomics: 50 Tips & Tricks for Serious Students” and contains some good suggestions but it seems to be based on some assumptions that are not … Continue reading “Good ergonomics advice but prevention should have been emphasised”
Further to the recent posting on cardiovascular disease research, Dr David Dunstan participated in an online media briefing on 12 January 2010. (Video and audio interviews have begun to appear on line) It is often difficult to identify control measures for workplace hazards from the raw research data. Dr Dunstan, this morning elaborated on the possible workplace … Continue reading “Move your way to better health”
Sitting for longer than four hours while watching television is likely to increase one’s risk of suffering a cardio-vascular disease (CVD), according to a new study reported in “Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association” in January 2010. The research was headed by Dr David Dunstan, Head of the Physical Activity Laboratory in the Division … Continue reading “Sit down, get to work, get sick”
WorkHealth has released some data on the results of its first wave of free health checks (not yet available online) “Recent results from tests of 3500 workers conducted as part of the ….WorkHealth program found more than half were overweight and/or had high blood pressure while a quarter had high levels of blood cholesterol.” These figures are … Continue reading “Early worker health statistics from WorkHealth”