Data Analysis Report
1 July 2017 to 30 June 2018
The National Asbestos Exposure Register (NAER) captures details of exposure, including where and when potential exposure occurred, and details of any diagnosis of asbestos–related disease. The register provides the agency with a statistical analysis of potential or actual exposure events across Australia and allows the agency to remain informed about potential risks identified through registration trends. As the NAER is a voluntary process it cannot purport to be an exact figure of all potential exposures or asbestos–related disease in Australia. This report provides a snapshot of registrations from 1 July 2017 to 30 June 2018.
The data provided by registrants to the NAER allows the agency to analyse trends and themes in potential asbestos exposure based on age, gender, location and type of potential exposure, frequency of potential exposure, when potential exposure first occurred and the types of jobs or industries where the greatest potential risk may be. If people have been diagnosed with an
asbestos–related disease it also allows the agency to estimate the time between the first exposure and when the disease was diagnosed.
Analysis of data in the NAER is based on information limited to the NAER and is general in nature. The NAER is recording where someone believes they have been exposed to asbestos fibres and the information given is taken in good faith and does not confirm exposure. This provides a view of perceived individual risk and general awareness can be inferred from what is recorded.
Of note is that the agency changed its data capture method on 1 April 2018 and now uses the Qualtrics system to record answers by registrants.
Registrations
Since its inception in June 2013, there have been 7,482 registrations up until 30 June 2018. As the agency has been collecting data for five years, Figure 1 below shows how the registrations have been increasing over the years and have plateaued in this financial year. It will be interesting to see if this trend continues or if it was an anomaly for this financial year. It could be indicative of the raised awareness on asbestos containing material in the community and as it is a change of the pattern,
it will be clearer in the next financial year registrations.
Figure 1 : Annual registrants for five years
In the 2017–18 financial year, NSW residents registered the highest number being 572 and Tasmanian residents were the lowest at 70 registrations. There was an increase in Qld from 279 in 2016–17 to 369 in 2017–18 and a decrease in WA from 491 to 181, respectively. Please refer to Table A1 in the appendix to show the breakdown of the registrations by state and month.
The 5 years of data in figures 2a-h below shows the fluctuations in the registrations from each state over this period. The purpose of these charts is to show the state trends over the 5 years of data we have rather than compare each state and they are not on the same scaling.
The ACT (2a) is seeing a downward trend from 2014–15, and WA (2h) has had a spike in 2016–17 and has started to trend down. Qld (2d) is seeing an upward trend in the past 2 years and although NSW (2b), SA (2e) and Vic (2g) have had fluctuations the trend is still upward. The NT (2c) and
Tas (2f) are deceptive given the small yearly registration numbers from this territory and state. This could indicate that more resources need to be directed to education and raising awareness in those states. Although the ACT has a small percentage per population there has been a lot of information in that territory about asbestos related to the Mr Fluffy scheme and this may indicate that due to
a higher awareness exposure is being avoided.
Figure 2 : Registrants by state of residence for five years
Exposure type and gender
The ratio of male to female exposure was approximately 78 per cent to 22 per cent which is steady from last financial year of 77 per cent to 23 per cent. Table A2 gives a breakdown by state for registrations by gender. The NT has the smallest ratio of male to females at approximately
54 per cent to 46 per cent and NSW and SA being the largest with approximately 85 per cent to 15 per cent males to female’s exposure.
The ratio of occupational exposure to non-occupational exposure was approximately 78 per cent to 22 per cent for 2017–18 financial year. The breakdown for the genders and exposure type can
be seen in Table A3 for the financial year. It also shows that female occupational to non-occupational exposure is fairly even, and with both genders the non-occupational exposure was the same.
However, males have six times the exposure in occupational settings, possibly due to traditional male workplaces precipitating potential exposure.
The registrants that listed an occupation category gave ‘other’ as the highest response (446) which had a variety of situations and the biggest trade areas were building and construction (292) and electrician (205). Of concern is that asbestos removal/disposal increased by 50 per cent although the numbers were small from 16 in 2016 –17 to 25 in 2017–18. The breakdown of the occupation categories can be seen in Table A4.
In the 2013–14 financial year the ratio of occupational to non-occupational was approximately 80 per cent to 20 per cent and 3 years up until this financial year have been steady around the 70–30 ratio and now it is trending towards the 80–20 ratio. Figure 3 below shows the five years of data representing exposure type.
Figure 3 : Breakdown of exposure setting for five year period
The incidents of higher numbers of occupational potential exposures could be correlated with how the registrant found out about the NAER. Table A5 gives a breakdown of the options and corresponding numbers and percentages by state. Over 30 per cent of registrants were advised about the NAER by their employer, with ‘other’, friends/family and unions being the next highest. Of interest was that 16 of the 78 participants in the ACT were advised by friends or family, which is a good indicator of the level of awareness in that territory.
The location of exposure has been broken down further in the NAER into ‘Work’ and for other
non-work related categories of Environmental/Domestic, Other, Residential and School/Educational.
When referring to table A6 there is a decrease in all factors except for work exposure compared to the 2016 –17 financial year figures – almost half for all but residential.
Age at exposure and frequency
The age range of first exposure is slightly different for females to males. The reported exposure in females was highest in the 30–39 age range at 26.81 per cent, 20–29 (22.78 per cent), 40–49 (16.89 per cent) then under 20 and 50–59 were equal (14.75 per cent) and over 60 years the lowest being 4.02 per cent of female registrants. Males had a highest age range for first
exposure at 20–29 being 31.43 per cent, then 30–39 (25.43 per cent), under 20 (18.45 per cent),
40–49 (15.08 per cent), 50–59 (7.73 per cent) and the lowest being over 60 years of 1.88 per cent of male registrants.
The most significant increase was in the under 20 year’s workplace exposures from the 2016–17 year of approximately 22 per cent to approximately 63 per cent in the 2017–18 year. Table A8 gives a breakdown of the age range and first exposure location. Further evaluation of these figures show that 47 per cent of these people were over 50 when they contacted the NAER meaning that they were exposed prior to a lot of safeguards that are now in place.
The trend for workplace exposures is trending up over the years in the under 40’s age range from 2014–15 at 42 per cent outside work to 58 per cent at work, in 2015 –16 there was 38 per cent outside of work and 62 per cent at work exposures, in 2016 –17 there were 40 per cent outside work to 60 per cent at work and in this reporting year there were 23.5 per cent outside work compared to
76.5 per cent at work for this age range. Table A8 shows the breakdown of ages of first exposure by gender.
When it comes to the length of exposure, the percentage for workplace exposure went down from the previous year by 50 per cent with only a few exceptions. The once only period was reported as having a movement last year of a five per cent increase, however, this year there were larger increases in some
periods. Greater than five years increased by 25 per cent, greater than two years and less than five years increased by 16 per cent, greater than six months and less than two years reduced by three per cent, zero to six – months increased by 21 per cent and once only went down by three per cent compared
to last year. Table A9 shows the breakdown of frequency of exposure by the individual categories of Environmental/Domestic, Other, Residential, School/Educational and Work.
Factors influencing registration numbers
Once again there are fluctuations from month to month and not consistently over time to be able to pin point a single or seasonal event. As in the past, the usual triggers appear to be as follows:
- reports of illegal dumping
- large employer or union related registrations
- reports generated by state governments in relation to building products
Trends
The second national strategic plan is under development and depending on the focus of this next phase and direction of the agency there could be a change in the trends of the 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 in the last financial year and this year they are spread over six of the eight states or territories that data is collected. 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 and when that diagnosis was and how old they were at the first exposure. Given the 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.
Figure 4 : Age from asbestos exposure to disease diagnosis
Figure 4 shows the difference in exposure to diagnosis and how cancer is the shortest period and the other asbestos–related diseases are around 45 years from first exposure to diagnosis. It could be argued that those exposed to asbestos have a good 40 years before diagnosis, however, it shows that if Australia gets to a stage of eliminating asbestos–related material that the health burden will span over the next two generations. Asbestos related–diseases can be prevented so there is a strong argument to remove asbestos–containing material as soon as possible.
2018 National Benchmark Survey of Awareness of and Attitudes to Asbestos
The 2018 national benchmark survey of and attitudes to asbestos has found that fewer than one third of DIY home renovators would hire a licensed asbestos assessor to establish if asbestos was present during a renovation, and two in every ten people would remove the asbestos themselves.
The agency conducted this third biennial national survey to determine whether community awareness of and attitudes to asbestos have changed over time and what work the agency needs to do to improve awareness levels and achieve important behaviour change in the community. It measures responses from the general public, tradespeople, DIY home renovators, and real estate agents.
The survey results show an overall positive improvement in awareness of the dangers of asbestos, how informed people feel about asbestos, and their ability to identify asbestos in the home.
The results of this survey also shows that more work needs to be done to educate DIY home renovators, who feel more informed about the dangers of asbestos than they did in 2016, but below what was measured in 2014.
Key findings from the report include:
- 59 per cent of general public consider being knowledgeable about asbestos and its related dangers as ‘very important’ – up from 52 per cent in 2016 and 43 per cent in 2014.
- The proportion of tradespeople who felt poorly informed or worse about asbestos halved.
- More than one in five tradespeople indicated a desire for more training on asbestos and its related dangers.
- There was an increase in the proportion of real estate agents and private landlords who have had formal asbestos training (24 per cent in 2018, up from 20 per cent in 2016 and 19 per cent in 2014).
- However 47 per cent of real estate agents and private landlords indicated they felt they needed more training.
- DIY home renovators aged 30–39 are more likely to undertake a renovation or demolition.
- Where an asbestos assessment was undertaken, 22 per cent of DIY home renovators said they did it themselves.
- Where asbestos was identified, 20 per cent of home renovators removed it themselves.
- Of those who removed themselves, 46 per cent said it was because they knew how to do it, 39 per cent said it was to save money.
- 21 per cent didn’t seek any information and relied on their own 'common sense/judgment'.
