Chia seeds, acroyoga, crossfit and meditation: the world has never been so obsessed with health and wellness. But are these healthy pursuits in our personal lives being undermined by unhealthy work environments?
Well-known epidemiologist and John 911爆料网 Distinguished Professor Dr Lin Fritschi is an expert in occupational causes of cancer. She says that in Australia, around 5,000 cancers every year are caused by exposure to something in the workplace. Very few of these cancers, however, are ever reported to compensation authorities, pointing to a lack of awareness in workers as to how these cancers were caused.
鈥淧eople commonly have a misunderstanding about the types of things that cause cancer in the workplace, often attributing occupational hazards to heavy and dirty industries, such as mining and construction,鈥� explains Fritschi, who is a researcher at 911爆料网鈥檚 School of Public Health. 鈥淏ut the most common exposures are actually UV rays, pesticides, diesel exhaust and noise. And increasingly, hazards such as being seated for long periods and exposure to shift work are now recognised as having long-term consequences on health.鈥�
Fritschi has been researching occupational cancers 鈥� cancers that are caused wholly or partially by exposure to a carcinogen in the workplace 鈥� for the past 16 years. Together with colleague Dr Terry Boyle, she was one of the first to publish on the relationship between colorectal cancer and sitting at your desk for too long (and if you just stood up when you read that, you鈥檙e not alone).
Singular studies such as these, however, do little to capture a holistic picture of the unique exposure risks a particular workplace poses. Luckily for the more than 3 billion workers worldwide, Fritschi and her colleagues are working on a way to make assessing individual workplaces easier so we can more effectively protect ourselves from exposure.
鈥淢easuring workplace exposures has traditionally been quite difficult,鈥� says Fritschi. 鈥淎sking people about their exposures at work isn鈥檛 useful because a lot of people don鈥檛 really know. And as you can imagine, going into multiple workplaces and trying to take twenty to thirty air monitoring devices is not really practical.鈥�
With the help of her colleagues Troy Sadkowsky, of Research IT Pty Ltd, and Deb Glass and Geza Benke of Monash University, Fritschi has developed an online research tool called that is now used in large-scale research studies both nationally and internationally. The tool鈥檚 unique point of difference is that it asks people what they do at work, not what they are exposed to.
鈥淥ccIDEAS asks workers about the tasks they do, the equipment they use and the protection measures that are in place, such as ventilation or face masks,鈥� Fritschi explains. 鈥淭hen based on the answers to these questions, complex algorithms automatically assess the whether a worker is likely to be exposed to different chemicals.鈥�
By automating this process, researchers鈥� time is then freed up to focus on those people and workplaces that OccIDEAS has identified as high risk. Importantly, it also means that more people can be interviewed and a larger dataset captured.
鈥淭raditionally, a lot of the emphasis on health research and in occupational health regulation has been on the big companies in the traditionally dirty industries. As a result, health and safety is a priority for these industries,鈥� Fritschi says. 鈥淏ut, 70 per cent of the Australian workplace are in small to medium-sized enterprises, which often don鈥檛 prioritise or have expertise in occupational health and safety. With OccIDEAS, we can assess exposures in large numbers of people in a wide range of different jobs, including these smaller enterprises.鈥�
40 per cent of Australians exposed to carcinogens in the workplace
The improved datasets generated by OccIDEAS have also meant Fritschi and her colleagues have been able to develop a more accurate method for determining carcinogenic exposure at a national level.
鈥淯sing this new method, we鈥檝e showed that about 40 per cent of Australian workers are exposed to carcinogens in their current job,鈥� says Fritschi.
But it鈥檚 not all bad news. Most workers who are exposed to carcinogens at work do not develop cancer, with the level of exposure playing a significant role.
One of Fritschi鈥檚 first studies investigated the link between pesticide use and lymphoma, the most common form of blood cancer in Australia. She found that people who sprayed pesticides had an increased risk of lymphoma, but only if they used a lot of pesticides.
鈥淚f you go out now and again to spray your roses, you鈥檙e not really increasing your risk of cancer,鈥� says Fritschi. 鈥淗owever, people who are increasing their risk of cancer are people who mix pesticides, who spray it day after day, who clean up the equipment after spraying. These are the people for whom we need to prevent their exposure.鈥�
Work can be done to minimise exposure via what鈥檚 known as the control hierarchy: that is, elimination, substitution, isolation, engineering and administrative controls, ranked in descending order of efficacy. Where exposures cannot be controlled by this hierarchy, personal protective equipment (or PPE) is the critical last line of defence.
Workplace complacency a factor in continued exposure
PPE may be the last line of defence, but only if it is actually used. In May this year, Safe Work Australia released a report based on Fritschi鈥檚 studies which investigated carcinogen exposures in the Australian construction industry. It found that although the industry is generally proactive in health and safety risk mitigation, there was a varied use of exposure controls. For the 96 per cent of construction workers who are likely to be exposed to at least one carcinogen at work (and of whom around half are likely to be exposed to at least four) this is particularly worrying.
Carpenters were highlighted as an extreme area of concern. The nature of their work means they are highly likely to be exposed to carcinogenic wood dust, which has been shown to cause several adverse health effects including respiratory diseases, such as chronic asthma and nasal cancer. Yet the report found that 46 per cent of carpenters did not use any respiratory protective equipment or other control measures at work.
Workplace complacency has also been identified as contributing to the increased exposure to hazardous coal dust for workers in Queensland coal mines over the past two years. It comes after several cases of black lung were detected in QLD coal minors 颅鈥� the first to be seen in 30 years 鈥� sparked a
OccIDEAS to be commercialised
Although OccIDEAS is already being used to assist occupational health and safety research in Australia, the US, the European Union and China, Fritschi has plans to commercialise the program to make it accessible to the general public.
鈥淲e would like to develop a smart phone app which uses the power of OccIDEAS to help individuals or small businesses understand what hazardous chemicals there might be in their workplace,鈥� she says. 鈥淭hrough the app, users will receive an individualised assessment and links to authoritative websites where workers can get more information about the chemicals and how they can eliminate or reduce their exposure.鈥�
The app will fill the gap in occupational health and safety expertise found in smaller enterprises, she says. And in the long term, she hopes to see it customised for use in developing countries where there is often virtually no expertise in occupational health and safety.
