SEMINAR: �Work and Health Research at WAIMR�

We spend a quarter of our lives at work, and the links between work and health are the focus of this seminar. The Epidemiology Group at WAIMR will present a range of studies which highlight the types of questions which are asked in this area, the methods used to answer the questions, and the direct implications of the results for policy and practice.

Associate Professor Alison Reid is an epidemiologist with research interests in migrant workers, women’s health and asbestos-related diseases. She will present results from an ARC-funded mixed-method survey examining work-related accidents and injuries among foreign and Australian-born workers.

Associate Professor Markus Melloh is an Orthopaedic Surgeon/Rheumatologist who worked as Head of an Interdisciplinary Pain Clinic and Coordinator of an International Spine Registry at different European universities before taking up the position of Senior Clinical Lecturer at the University of Otago in 2007, followed by an appointment at WAIMR in 2012. Given the increasing socio-economic costs of persistent low back pain (LBP) and the high prevalence of LBP-related sickness absence his presentation will look at prognostic occupational models for persistent LBP and LBP-related sickness absence.

Assistant Professor Susan Peters is an occupational epidemiologist who trained at the Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences in Utrecht, the Netherlands. Her particular research interests are exposure assessment methodology and work related cancer. She will talk about occupational lung cancer and its relevance to Western Australia.

Dr Renee Carey has a PhD in Psychology and coordinates two nationwide studies investigating the prevalence of occupational exposure to carcinogens and asthmagens. She will be presenting the results of the NHMRC –funded Australian Work Exposures Study, which provides much-needed information about the prevalence of exposure to carcinogens in Australia and allows for an estimation of the future burden of occupational cancers in Australia.