Physical activity initiatives for male factory workers : gatekeepers' perceptions of potential motivators and barriers

Objective: Worksites have been argued to be a key setting for physical activity promotion, particularly for lower-paid, less-skilled workers. These occupational groups are at increased risk of cardiovascular disease. There is no strong evidence in support of the efficacy of worksite fitness and physical activity interventions. This study assessed potential motivators and barriers to worksite physical activity initiatives for less-skilled workers.

Method: We conducted telephone interviews with 13 Victorian WorkCover insurance providers and 30 manufacturing industry worksite managers. The manufacturing industry was selected as it contains a substantial portion of workers from this high-risk occupational group.

Results: Most insurers incorporated physical activity elements into injury-prevention programs. Few worksite managers reported programs to encourage workers to be more active; they identified reduced premiums and lower-cost programs through insurers as possible motivators. Both groups identified workers' reluctance to participate in physical activity, lack of awareness of potential benefits and program cost as major barriers for worksite physical activity. Other barriers included potential adverse effects on productivity and increased injury risk.

Conclusions: Broader occupational health and safety policies and joint initiatives between insurers and worksite managers may have the potential to provide more opportunities for workers to be more active. However, the barriers identified outweighed the perceived benefits.

Implications: Without structural and regulatory changes or new incentives, the adoption of physical activity initiatives in Australian manufacturing-industry workplaces is unlikely.

The DSM-5: hyperbole, hope or hypothesis?

The furore preceding the release of the new edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) is in contrast to the incremental changes to several diagnostic categories, which are derived from new research since its predecessor’s birth in 1990. While many of these changes are indeed controversial, they do reflect the intrinsic ambiguity of the extant literature. Additionally, this may be a mirror of the frustration of the field’s limited progress, especially given the false hopes at the dawn of the “decade of the brain”. In the absence of a coherent pathophysiology, the DSM remains no more than a set of consensus based operationalized adjectives, albeit with some degree of reliability. It does not cleave nature at its joints, nor does it aim to, but neither does alternate systems. The largest problem with the DSM system is how it’s used; sometimes too loosely by clinicians, and too rigidly by regulators, insurers, lawyers and at times researchers, who afford it reference and deference disproportionate to its overt acknowledged limitations.

Marketing the message: the making of the Market for Life Insurance in Australia, 1850–1940

During the late nineteenth century, sales of life insurance products in Australia increased at a rapid rate. An investigation of the way in which life insurance products were targeted to the consumers provides insights not only into the marketing approaches, but also the changing nature of the mutual organization. This article uses a “stages” approach to analyze the evolution of the marketing message. The experience of Australian mutual insurers suggests that marketing strategies, as with other types of organizational skills, evolve in response to both the prevailing business environment and the ability of the firm to acquire and implement new knowledge and ways of conducting business.

Ageing well, ageing productively : the essential contribution of Australia's ageing population to the social and economic prosperity of the nation

In Australia we have become preoccupied with the potential adverse impact of our ageing population on our health and social systems. The projected cost of having increasing proportions of our population in the over 70s, retired, chronically ill category of the demographic profile is emerging as a major challenge for governments and private insurers: so much so in fact that the government is now urging older people to stay at work longer. In America, new approaches to the management and self-management of chronic diseases have been invoked to encourage and support older people to improve their quality of life and reduce their recourse to and dependence upon health care technologies, clinical interventions and health care management systems. Unless this is achieved, it is argued, the cost of looking after this emerging ‘bubble’ of elderly people will become increasingly unsustainable as fewer and fewer (proportionately) younger people work to pay the taxes that support ageing, retired, sick and dependent populations. This paper argues that we are at real risk of having our economic wealth and productivity impeded and truncated by the financial burden of looking after high demand and high cost dependants at the aged end of the social demographic. This paper offers an alternative view of our ageing population, as well as highlighting some of the assets we have in our elderly populations, and providing suggestions as to an alternative view of the phenomenon of ageing that incorporates elements such as flexible working arrangements and the application of new, enabling technologies. This approach to our ageing population dilemma is predicated on a concept of lifelong learning and social participation along with better preventive and early intervention systems of health care