Incidence of work-related disease

Safe Work Australia is proud to announce the beta release of our new data website, data.safeworkaustralia.gov.au.

The new website delivers national work health and safety and workers’ compensation data in an intuitive, user-friendly way.

Please visit the website and fill out the short online questionnaire. Feedback can also be emailed to statsonline@swa.gov.au.

We produce reports on work-related diseases and priority diseases. 

Work-related disease research issues 

It’s hard to know exactly how often work-related diseases happen or how they’ve changed over time or across industries. This is because: 

  • people can get sick from exposures both at work and outside the workplace 

  • some diseases can take a long time to show symptoms after a worker is exposed, and 

  • workers can find it hard to link their illness to work and report it, so the data doesn’t show in the workers’ compensation system. 

Research and reports on work-related disease 

Australian workers’ compensation statistics  

These reports summarise Australian workers’ compensation statistics, including; 

  • claims that were made by workers 

  • trends over time, and 

  • an overview of time lost and amounts paid. 

We present data by industry, job, age group and sex.  

Australian Mesothelioma Registry  

Mesothelioma is an asbestos-related cancer and is often work-related.  

The Australian Mesothelioma Registry (AMR) records and monitors: 

  • diagnosed cases of mesothelioma 

  • deaths from the disease, and 

  • the likely asbestos exposure of people who have mesothelioma.  

The AMR shows groups most at risk of asbestos exposure. 

It informs policies to prevent exposure and helps us know how much the disease could cost the community in the future. 

Mesothelioma in Australia 2019  

This report has data on: 

  • cases of mesothelioma from 2011 to 2019 (National Cancer Statistics Clearing House), and 

  • deaths from mesothelioma from 2012 to 2019 (National Mortality Database).  

Request data

If you would to request data visit our Request data page