Health and wellness in the Australian coal mining industry: A cross sectional analysis of baseline findings from the RESHAPE workplace wellness program

PLoS One. 2021 Jun 4;16(6):e0252802. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0252802. eCollection 2021.

Abstract

Overweight and obesity has reach pandemic levels, with two-thirds (67%) of adult Australians classified as overweight or obese. As two of the most significant behavioral risk factors for obesity are modifiable (diet and exercise), there exists an opportunity for treatment through workplace health promotion initiatives. As one of Australia's largest industries with its own unique workplace factors, the mining industry has previously reported higher than population levels of overweight and obesity. This represented an opportune setting to test the RESHAPE workplace wellness program. RESHAPE is an eight-step framework (based on the WHO 'Health Workplace Framework and Model') which aims to provide a sustained approach to wellness in the workplace. This paper presents baseline findings from a pilot study that aimed to implement RESHAPE at three mine sites in NSW, Australia, and investigates the issue of overweight and obesity in the coal mining industry. Across three mine sites, 949 coal miners were examined cross-sectionally on a range of workplace, wellness, health, diet, and exercise factors using a paper-based survey. This was a predominantly male sample (90.4%) with the majority (59.2%) of participants aged 25-44 years. Self-reported height and weight measures indicated that less than 20 percent (18.9%) of participants were in a healthy BMI range, while there were effectively equal numbers of overweight (40.9%) and obese (39.1%) participants. Only 3.5% of participants met the daily recommendation for vegetables (5 serves) and shift-workers had greater association with elevated BMI compared to non-shift workers (B = 1.21, 95% CI: 0.23, 2.20, p = 0.016). Poor nutrition is likely to be a key component in elevated levels of overweight and obesity within this industry, with workplace factors compounding challenges workers face in implementing health behavior change. Future studies would benefit from assessing diet and physical activity knowledge in relation to recommendations and serving sizes.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Coal
  • Exercise
  • Health Promotion*
  • Humans
  • Middle Aged
  • Workplace*

Substances

  • Coal

Grants and funding

This research was supported by competitive grant funding from Coal Services Health and Safety Trust G1800980. This grant provided funding for the salary for author EA. The funding body did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. All other salaries were provided as in-kind support either from the University of Newcastle (AB, LA, CJ) or commercial entity Ethos Health (TW). The specific roles of these authors are articulated in the ‘author contributions’ section.