Occupational health and safety among commercial sex workers

The concept of occupational health and safety (OHS) for commercial sex workers has rarely been investigated, perhaps because of the often informal nature of the workplace, the associated stigma, and the frequently illegal nature of the activity. We reviewed the literature on health, occupational risks, and safety among commercial sex workers. Cultural and local variations and commonalities were identified. Dimensions of OHS that emerged included legal and policing risks, risks associated with particular business settings such as streets and brothels, violence from clients, mental health risks and protective factors, alcohol and drug use, repetitive strain injuries, sexually transmissible infections, risks associated with particular classes of clients, issues associated with male and transgender commercial sex workers, and issues of risk reduction that in many cases are associated with lack of agency or control, stigma, and legal barriers. We further discuss the impact and potential of OHS interventions for commercial sex workers. The OHS of commercial sex workers covers a range of domains, some potentially modifiable by OHS programs and workplace safety interventions targeted at this population. We argue that commercial sex work should be considered as an occupation overdue for interventions to reduce workplace risks and enhance worker safety.

Ensuring implementation success : how should coach injury prevention education be improved if we want coaches to deliver safety programmes during training sessions?

Coaches play a major role in encouraging and ensuring that participants of their teams adopt appropriate safety practices. However, the extent to which the coaches undertake this role will depend upon their attitudes about injury prevention, their perceptions of what the other coaches usually do and their own beliefs about how much control they have in delivering such programmes. Fifty-one junior netball coaches were surveyed about incorporating the teaching of correct (safe) landing technique during their delivery of training sessions to junior players. Overall, >94% of coaches had strongly positive attitudes towards teaching correct landing technique and >80% had strongly positive perceptions of their own control over delivering such programmes. Coaches’ ratings of social norms relating to what others think about teaching safe landing were more positive (>94%) than those relating to what others actually do (63–74%). In conclusion, the junior coaches were generally receptive towards delivering safe landing training programmes in the training sessions they led. Future coach education could include role modelling by prominent coaches so that more community-level coaches are aware that this is a behaviour that many coaches can, and do, engage in.

A safety culture in construction business

Promoting safety management is always the top priority in construction business. Fostering safety culture will be one of the most effective ways. This paper is a case study, based upon the “Geller’s 10 principles for achieving a total safety culture”, to review how a construction companyin Hong Kong effectively promoting safety culture and enjoying pleasant safety records. Zero harmis not a “zero sum game”, but it requires positive “top down” and “bottom up” actions from both employers and employees.