Guides: Health: Occupational health and safety

Health Librarian

Marisa Jayna

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Multidisciplinary databases

Scopus This link opens in a new window
High-quality, scholarly sources for science, technology, social sciences, arts, and humanities. Excellent search tool for topics covering more than one subject.
Dimensions This link opens in a new window
Explore library content and open access content from the internet in a single search. Find scholarly publications, research grants, clinical trials, patents, and government policy documents from all subject areas. Log in using your University email address to access library content and policy documents from off-campus.
ProQuest (all databases) This link opens in a new window
A good source of multidisciplinary material. Remember to filter down to scholarly journal articles. There is an option to do a Not Full Text (NOFT) search in the advanced search, to make results more precise.
Google Scholar
Google search for scholarly literature on any subject. Includes Check@Wellington for full-text access.
How to search on Google with expert search tips
Overton This link opens in a new window
Overton is the world’s largest searchable policy database. Search millions of policy documents linked to the research, people and other policy documents that they quote or reference.
You will need to register with your university email address.
Search tips. Watch this recording to learn how Overton may be used in your study, teaching or research. Nathalie Cornée from Overton demonstrates and explains. 59 minutes.

New Zealand Resources

Business Leaders Health & Safety Forum
A leading forum in New Zealand on Health and Safety management. Resources can be found under the 'Resources' and 'Case studies' sections.
New Zealand Transport Accident Investigation Commission (TAIC)
Publishes reports on aviation and marine incidents.

Standards New Zealand Online Library This link opens in a new window
Access the full text of New Zealand Standards (NZS) and any international standards (AS, BS, ISO, IEC) adopted for New Zealand use.

WorkSafe
Publications from WorkSafe.

NZ Research This link opens in a new window
The most comprehensive collection of New Zealand research papers and related resources. Includes research from universities, polytechnics, and research organisations.

Legal resources

Lexis Advance This link opens in a new window
Legislation, case law and commentary from multiple jurisdictions including NZ, Australia and UK.
New Zealand Legislation This link opens in a new window
Managed by the Parliamentary Counsel Office this database contains the official versions of current New Zealand Acts, Regulations, Bills and Supplementary Order Papers.
Westlaw New Zealand This link opens in a new window
Westlaw NZ provides access to New Zealand legislation, case law, commentary, journals, news and precedents. Includes the Workplace Safety and Accidents Handbook.

District Court of New Zealand publications
Prosecutions under the Health and Safety at Work Act are taken in the District Court. Decisions written by the Judges are available on the District Court website page reports, publications and statistics. Searching on "health and safety" gives all cases under the current Act and many under the earlier Health and Safety in Employment Act.
UK legislation
Free access to UK legislation.

International Resources

Centre for Analysis of Risk and Regulation (CARR)
CARR is an interdisciplinary research unit, whose core intellectual work focuses on the organisational and institutional settings for risk management and regulatory practices.
Globally Harmonised System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS)
The GHS coordinates chemicals safety in Europe.
International Network of Safety & Health Professional Organisations
INSHPO publishes professional standards for OHS practitioners and professionals.
UK Health and Safety Executive
The Health and Safety Executive publishes contract research reports on a wide range of occupational health and safety-related subjects.
The UK Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH)
A range of publications from Institution of Occupational Safety and Health.
UK Office of Rail and Road Regulator
The ORR is the regulatory agency for road and rail networks and users and publishes information that may be of interest.
US Chemical Safety Board
The CSB publishes reports on chemical safety-related incidents in the USA. Some reports are complemented by videos that can be watched or downloaded free of charge.
British Standards Online: BSOL
Catalog of British standards publications. All current, and most historic documents are available to subscribers for online viewing and electronic download. Users must have the FileOpen plug-in installed in order to access all electronic BSI documents.

Books

Handbook of Occupational Safety and Health by S. Z. Mansdorf (Editor)
Publication Date: 2019
A quick, easy-to-consult source of practical overviews on wide-ranging issues of concern for those responsible for the health and safety of workers.
Increasing Occupational Health and Safety in Workplaces by Ronald J. Burke (Editor); Astrid M. Richardsen (Editor)
Publication Date: 2019
This book considers occupational health and safety, and the ways in which it can be increased to both improve working conditions and reduce the material costs of accidents.
Occupational and Environmental Health: recognizing and preventing disease and injury by Barry S. Levy (Editor); David H. Wegman (Editor); Sherry L. Baron (Editor); Rosemary K. Sokas (Editor); Heather L. McStowe
Publication Date: 2017
Includes information on both occupational health and environmental health, providing the necessary foundation for recognizing and preventing work-related and environmentally induced diseases and injuries.
Physical and Biological Hazards of the Workplace by Gregg M. Stave (Editor); Peter H. Wald (Editor)
Publication Date: 2016
Provides updated information on protecting workers from physical hazards and details on biological hazards.
Hunter's Diseases of Occupations by J. Malcolm Harrington (Editor); Paul Durrington (Editor); Peter J. Baxter (Editor); Tar-Ching Aw (Editor); Anne Cockcroft (Editor)
Publication Date: 2010
Hunter's Diseases of Occupations has remained the pre-eminent text on diseases caused by work, universally recognized as the most authoritative source of information in the field. It is an important guide for doctors in all disciplines who may encounter occupational diseases in their practice, covering topics as diverse as work and stress, asbsetos-related disease, working at high altitude and major chemical incidents, many of which are highly topical.
Managing the Unexpected by Karl E. Weick; Kathleen M. Sutcliffe
Publication Date: 2007
This books looks at why some organisations better able than others to maintain function and structure in the face of unanticipated change. Specially looking at high reliability organizations (HROs).

Journals

Policy and Practice in Health and Safety
Published research which has significant practical implications for the wider world of occupational safety and health.
Safety Science
This journal covers the physics and engineering of safety; its social, policy and organizational aspects; the assessment, management and communication of risks; the effectiveness of control and management techniques for safety; standardization, legislation, inspection, insurance, costing aspects, human behavior and safety.
Journal of Safety Research
It covers safety and health with a focus on unintentional injury and illness prevention.
Safety and Health at Work
Covers occupational health and safety. This includes; epidemiology, medicine, hygiene, toxicology, nursing and health services, work safety, ergonomics, work organization, engineering of safety, safety management and policy, and studies related to economic evaluation and its social policy and organizational aspects.
New Zealand Journal of Health and Safety Practice
The New Zealand Journal of Health and Safety Practice (NZJHSP) is an open access, peer-reviewed, online journal for the publication of research into, and the practice of, workplace and occupational health and safety in New Zealand and other countries.

Extra resources

IOSH Magazine
A magazine produced by the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health and freely available on ISSUU.

Reports on occupational health and safety
To download, right click on file and click "save link as.." to your computer. You can then import the file into your EndNote, Zotero or Mendeley library. Remember to import the file as a RIS file type. If you are using Endnote it is strongly suggested that you create a new Endnote library called Grey literature and import into that.

The txt file catalogues more than 3,400 “grey or primary literature” sources on occupational health and safety and related topics that are probably reliable. The records often are research reports or similar that are in the public domain. Weblinks in the records often lead to the correct website but you will need to navigate from that point to the repository containing the files. More journal articles are being published open access and some are included in this database. Most have a DOI so you should be able to click straight through to read or download them.

Before you import the file go to the Endnote menu Tools/open term lists/author and manually add FM Global, and make sure the comma follows Global. This will prevent the imported citation being “Global” and the bibliography at the end of you document showing “Global, FM”.
Some documents (especially the FM Global files) may have been updated since they were first recorded and you will need to update the Endnote entry.
Please contact Chris Peace [christopher.peace@vuw.ac.nz] if you have want to give feedback or suggest additions.

NOHSAC reports