TITLE:
The New Dimensions of Occupational Health
AUTHORS:
Michel P. Guillemin
KEYWORDS:
Work Changes, Emerging Issues, Global Concept, Worrying Trends, Responsibilities
JOURNAL NAME:
Health,
Vol.11 No.5,
May
31,
2019
ABSTRACT: Occupational Health (OH) is an important chapter of Public Health but its visibility is poor and continues to decrease. Examples of this worrying trend show that it impacts on our society regarding health of the working population and the retired individuals and on the economy through huge expenses for health, absenteeism, psychosocial problems, loss of performance and quality of work, etc. To cope with this challenge and to give its right place to OH, a global approach and a vision of this multidisciplinary field is needed as well as the development of emerging issues that stress, besides the prevention of occupational diseases, the promotion of “good health” through sciences like salutogenesis, positive psychology and the new findings of neuroscience. Moreover, all the partners involved in OH have to take their responsibility of this matter. The OH professionals have to enlarge the scope of their expertise; the academic institutions and research and education centers have to give more support to OH and the social partners and the decision-makers (politicians) have to put OH in their priorities. This paper is not a review of the new dimensions of OH but an overview of the emerging issues that have to be developed, based on the author’s experience of more than 40 years.