As is consistent with a large number of articles in the SafetyAtWorkBlog, the best evidence is research that is compiled independently and that is peer-reviewed. One of the themes of the article above was that several of the situations mentioned by Hannan were anecdotal.

Marie Hogg has advised that in her opinion “Collating exhaustive feedback from our huge database of members would definitely qualify as research.” It may, but not in the context of this SafetyAtWorkBlog article, in my opinion.

Below is the full paragraph from Marie Hogg’s clarification for full context of her “anecdotal member feedback” phrase.

“Comment was that ‘mental health claims relating to working from home’ have increased during COVID. Jurisdictions have verbally updated SWA members at SWA meetings on COVID coded claims, including working from home, since the new coding system was introduced at the start of the pandemic. We have observed more COVID-related mental health claims/WFH claims than COVID contraction claims although note we can’t compare the usual non-COVID claim rates to COVID claim rates at this point so it is ancedotal member feedback. SWA is currently compiling the data with the intent to publish.”

On matters that she raised over the phone with me this morning but not in her email, the blog article does not question Jennifer Low’s OHS credentials. Her position title was reproduced from Hannan’s article and a hyperlink to Jennifer Low’s LinkedIn profile was included (the default setting for SafetyAtWorkBlog articles) which clearly includes a mention of her 2011 Certificate IV in OHS from TAFE NSW.