The 2017–18 year was the fifth year of full operation for the agency and another significant year in delivering the work required by the ASEA Act and the review of the national strategic plan as the plan comes to an end and the agency began to develop a new plan for future years.
Awareness
Awareness levels of the agency and its activities have been slowly building since its establishment in 2013. However, more work needs to be done to further improve awareness, according to the results of the third national survey of asbestos awareness and attitudes run in 2017–18.
In 2014, the agency commissioned the first ever national survey of awareness of and attitudes towards asbestos and the risks of exposure to asbestos, creating a baseline of statistics on which the agency could test awareness levels and attitudes at biennial intervals into the future. The agency conducted a benchmark national survey in May 2016 and April 2018, which continues to highlight that more work needs to be done in raising levels of awareness in certain sectors like the young DIY home renovators, young tradespeople and non-English–speaking communities.
The results of the 2018 national survey and comparisons to the 2014 baseline and 2016 benchmark surveys will be published on the agency website and presented to the agency’s 2018 headline event Asbestos: the next national plan – Proactivity, prevention, planning being held in Sydney in November 2018. The agency conducts these benchmark national surveys on a biennial basis to determine ongoing attitudes and awareness levels, as well as to focus awareness activities.
Trends in National Asbestos Exposure Register
The second national strategic plan is under development and depending on the focus of this next phase of the agency could see a change in the trends of the National Asbetos Exposure Register (NAER).
The loose–fill asbestos programs in the ACT and NSW are winding down and how this impacts the figures on this aspect of reporting will be interesting. Table A10 shows the overall number of loose- fill asbestos exposures has declined from 199 to 125. The awareness of people visiting homes has
increased, with only the ACT and Qld having entries and this year they are spread over six of the eight states or territories that data is collected in. As the DIY sector is a concern of being the third wave of asbestos exposure it is encouraging that this area has reduced by nearly 50 per cent.
Since the 2015–16 year participants on the register have been asked whether they have been diagnosed with an asbestos–related disease, when that diagnosis was and how old they were at the first expose. Given that research is showing that there are 4,000 deaths from asbestos– related diseases in Australia every year there is only a small percentage of people that have recorded this information on the NAER (1 per cent). This year’s results are shown in table A11 in the appendix.
When analysing this year’s results the average time from exposure to diagnosis was calculated to be as follows; asbestosis – 48 years, cancer – 10 years, mesothelioma – 42.5 years, pleural plaques 41 years and one participant listed all diseases and the period was 47 years.
The difference between cancer and other asbestos–related diseases in the period from exposure to diagnosis is that it can take up to 45 years for doctors to diagnose asbestos–related diseases. It could be argued that those exposed to asbestos have a good 40 years before diagnosis, however, it shows that if Australia gets to the stage of eliminating asbestos–related material, the health burden will span over the next two generations. The longer it takes to eliminate asbestos, the more generations will be impacted by its deadly legacy.
