One of the first research reports into the psychological impacts of the COVID19 pandemic has been published in the Medical Journal of Australia. It studied the first month of the infection’s appearance in Australia and seems much more evidential than some of the marketing-based survey reports that have also appeared in the last three months. …
David Michaels devoted a whole chapter to sport-related concussions and brain damage in his 2020 book “The Triumph of Doubt“. He wrote about how the National Football League obfuscated over the appearance of concussions and chronic traumatic encephalopathy, and how the the NFL downplayed the injury’s significance by referring to repeated head trauma as Mild …
Australian discussions about workplace bullying and sexual harassment at the moment is in a mess indicating that insufficient work has been spent on clarifying what these terms mean, how the consequences are managed and whether the harm can be prevented. In Parliamentary debate on the 2020 Budget, the Liberal Party’s Sussan Ley, said: “The Morrison …
The COVID19 pandemic has devastated many countries but it has also created business opportunities. Recently workplace IT company Skedulo released a whitepaper about the new work normal. The document is essentially a marketing strategy but there are some hints about workplace change that may be of interest to occupational health and safety (OHS) advocates and …
Safe Work Australia also attended Senate Estimates late last month. COVID19 is an unavoidable focus but we learnt that the latest fatality report will be released early this month, obtained more details on the response to the Boland Report, heard more about the gig economy but the climax was accusations of a coverup with Senator …
In 2017 Work Health and Safety Queensland (WHSQ) released this advice about reducing the physical risks associated with manual handling: “The research evidence shows that providing lifting technique training is not effective in minimising the risk of injury from manual tasks.” So why is “correct lifting technique” still being included in safety procedures and Safe …
This article is about SafeWorkNSW’s recently released Draft Code of Practice for Managing the Risks to Psychological Health, but it is not going to focus on the Code. Instead the focus will be on the supplementary Explanatory Paper because this presents the rationale for the Code’s contents and, in many ways, is a more useful …
