Occupational Health

John Walsh

Occupational health was defined in 1950 by a working group of the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the World Health Organization as “the promotion and maintenance of the highest degree of physical, mental and social well-being of workers in all occupations; the prevention among workers of departures from health caused by their working conditions; the protection of workers in their employment from risks resulting from factors adverse to health; the placing and maintenance of the worker in an occupational environment adapted to his physiological equipment and, to summarize, the adaptation of work to man and of each man to his job.” This formulation supersedes earlier understanding of occupational disease and of safety, to take account of the wider range of circumstances in which work takes place. However, long-standing problems remain important in many parts of the world. For example, hundreds of Chinese mine workers continue to be killed annually while ...

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