The department has established the National Occupational Respiratory Disease Registry (the National Registry) to record the nature and extent of occupational respiratory diseases in Australia.

The purpose of the National Registry is to capture and share data on the incidence of occupational respiratory diseases, causative exposures, and respiratory health data to help detect new and emerging threats to workers’ respiratory health, identify incidence trends, and assist with targeting and monitoring the effectiveness of interventions and prevention strategies.

The National Occupational Respiratory Disease Registry Act 2023 requires the following physicians to report diagnoses of prescribed occupational respiratory diseases to the National Registry from 22 May 2024:

• occupational and environmental medicine physicians
• respiratory and sleep medicine physicians.

Physicians can choose to report non-prescribed occupational respiratory diseases to the National Registry, provided that they have patient consent.

Additional information on the National Registry can found on the department’s website.

AHA has been appointed as the National Registry Operator to manage the National Registry on behalf of the department. As the National Registry Operator, AHA’s role is to:

• manage the National Registry portal and the associated National Registry Help Desk
• collect, review and analyse registry data
• administer a voluntary patient questionnaire
• produce quarterly and annual reports
• provide approved research projects with access to registry data
• create and maintain web content such as user guides and FAQs.