Shiftwork has long been recognized as an occupational health and safety hazard. A common goal among academics and practitioners across a number of disciplines is to better understand the relationship between shiftwork, health and performance. The goal in understanding this relationship is to design work schedules that limit the potential adverse effects of shiftwork. The Working Time Society meets every 2 years to share their latest research in this area. In August 2007, the society held its 18th International Symposium on Shift Work and Working Time in Yeppoon, Australia.

This special issue of Applied Ergonomics contains 15 articles from the symposium and builds upon an earlier shiftwork special issue published by this journal (Knauth, 1996a). The articles include a keynote from Popkin et al. (2008) that addresses the critical topic of ageing in the workforce. Tucker and Knowles (2008) examined the evidence for the use of the Standard Shiftwork Index (SSI, Barton et al., 1995) in supporting a shiftwork model of health and performance. The largest number of articles examine the impact of shiftwork on work and non-work indicators. Another group of articles examine sleep and its impact on fatigue and performance, and three articles make use of the work ability index (WAI). The final two articles look at the use of free time on sleep, recovery and well-being (Tucker et al., 2008) and injury patterns by time of day in adolescents (Loudoun and Allan, 2008).