Australasian Mine Safety is the leading voice for all key decision makers within Mining company's and major contractors. Delivering the latest industry news as it breaks.
Issue link: http://ebook.aprs.com.au/i/52244
this potential, many occupational settings do not facilitate health promotion programs or develop inappropriately planned, unstructured or unsustainable programs that are not appropriately evaluated (Egger, Spark & Donovan, 2005). Opportunities exist for the establishment of sustainable health promotion actions by addressing risk factors and barriers, enabling positive health behaviours and building social capital (World Health Organization, 1998). In a mining industry setting, significant potential for workforce health improvement lies across a range of priority health conditions such as cardiovascular disease, musculoskeletal (M/S) injury and disorder, obesity, sleep disorders, fatigue and mental health. All of these conditions are interactive suggesting that there is no single solution to developing intervention to prevent of treat them. For example, chronic M/S conditions may involve both biophysical and psychosocial health issues and the condition may be exacerbated by overweight and obesity. Adopting a forward thinking perspective requires an understanding of why health problems arise and the development of proactive and context specific initiatives based on current evidence based knowledge. In order to gain a complete understanding of health issues, it is necessary to consider the determinants of health and their positive or negative impact on health status. Increasing the health profile within the OH&S framework The collective health status of employees has an important impact on the industry in terms of productivity and economic expenditure. A healthy workforce has been shown to be more productive, with reduced absenteeism and presenteeism and with significant cost benefits. Unfortunately, the lack of reliable and accurate health information and inadequate evaluation of health interventions makes cost benefit analyses difficult. In addition to these potential benefits, employers that support workplace health promotion initiatives demonstrate to their personnel and the wider community that they value their employees. Establishing a healthy workforce requires health education methods that effectively communicate information and support positive and lasting effects on health related knowledge, attitudes, values and behaviour. The workplace has been identified as one of the most important settings where health promotion can occur due to the potential for efficiencies, success and sustainability (Egger, Spark & Donovan, 2005; Bilski & Wierzejska, 2008). Despite A holistic and whole-of-company approach is required to identify key factors which impact on the health of the workforce and opportunities for improvement of health surveillance systems and interventions. Commitment of leadership to short and longer term health of the workforce is essential for successful implementation of health initiatives. Organisational, environmental, training and individual behaviours are also key areas which impinge on health outcomes and potential barriers to successful implementation of health initiatives in the industry. Effective communication is a fundamental element in addressing these issues and in providing a coordinated and consistent framework to promote the key performance indicators in the area of health. Greater understanding of the underlying requirements for effective communication is required together with the need for new and innovative evidence based solutions and strategies which recognises the uniqueness of the mining setting and culture. Communication practices in the mining industry Miners are normally required to undertake compulsory health and safety training when 77 The Australasian Mine Safety Journal Summer 2011/12