Australia’s national laws for worker psychological health: a policy evaluation and psychosocial safety climate analysis

This study explored changes in psychosocial safety climate (PSC) resulting from legislative changes in WHS psychosocial risk (among other things).

Too much to cover, so a few extracts:

· “Improving workers’ psychological health is an international priority”

· “We assess organisational impact via changes in Psychosocial Safety Climate (PSC)… and worker psychological distress”

· “Findings show a positive impact of targeted psychosocial law on organisations’ safety system and workers’ health”

· “Results verify that Australia had an increased legislative work-related psychological health focus.”

· “the score of law in Australia was 0.89 in 2021 and 0.96 in 2024… ranked 3rd in the world in 2024 (in 2021, Australia was ranked 7th).”

· “PSC improved over time in the Legislated group but dropped in the Comparison group.”

· “Psychological distress did not significantly decrease in Legislated group.”

· “Findings show that where revised national laws have been implemented, they have had an impact”

· “Only two PSC sub-systems increased—management priority and management commitment—suggesting communication and participation take longer to emerge.”

· “More action may be needed to allow for policy translation to further influence workers’ psychological health.”

Ref: Potter, R. E., Loh, M. Y., Dollard, M. F., Friebel, A., Neser, D., Afsharian, A., … & Iles, R. (2025). Australia’s national laws for worker psychological health: a policy evaluation and psychosocial safety climate analysis. Safety Science, 191, 106899.