19.9.2016 /TL/TJ/JL-U

BSN COST PROPOSAL

Background

A document based situation analysis of existing occupational health service systems in Northern Dimension Partnership in Public Health and Social Well-being (NDPHS) countriesLithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland,Finland, Norway, Russia and Germany was conducted in 2011. The report is available at the NDPHS web pages (ndphs.org). In all the surveyed countries occupational health service had a role and tasks in the prevention, identification and analysis of occupational injuriesand occupational diseases. In Baltic countries and Russia the main actor was occupational health physician while in other countries a multi-disciplinary team was available. The workplace involvement varied.

An European Union COST project called MODERNET was ongoing in 2010-2014. Modernet is a network for studying trends in occupational and work-related diseases and for discovering new or emerging risks.

The summary of the MODERNET report says: “Action surveyed existent data sources for monitoring the frequency of OD in the EU and developed recommendations for OD registration. It undertook a Cochrane Review on “Interventions to increase the reporting of OD by physicians”. It analysed multinational trends in a range of OD. It developed and applied methodology for analysing national changes in incidence of OD as well as demonstrating the impact of national and EU level interventions to prevent OD. The Action developed and used a tool based on a sentinel clinical system to detect new work related diseases (OccWatch project). An interactive website was established ( as well as using scientific journals and social media for dissemination. The network eventually comprised 17 countries and 2 institutions from non-COST countries, and has trained 14 researchers through Short Term Scientific Missions and supported about 65 more in its scientific workshops and conferences.”

The idea is to make a new COST proposal based on the above works to take the level of actions closer to the daily work of OPs and GPs and workplaces.

Main Challenge

The main challenge for this proposal is to involve the NDPHS member states and OSH institutions to commit themselves to develop national policies to decrease the burden of occupational injuries and work-related diseases and find operational models for prevention. A key feature of this development is to connect national policy level development with developments at the grassroots and organizational levels, thus forming a more integrated national development system for prevention of occupational injuries and work-related diseases.

Objectives

Engaging the OSH institutes and labour inspection in the Baltic Sea countries to developevidence based policies and innovative methodologies to ensure more integrated national systems of indentifying, reporting and recording of occupational injuries and work-related diseases, and developing and disseminating successful preventive operational models and training of occupational health staff and decision makers.

For example, early warning systems are important to detect new or emerging work related health effects, including occupational cancer. The novelty of the use of early warning systems is to use signals from the field, such as cases or clusters of cancers suspicious to be related with occupational exposure. Occupational health specialists (occupational health physicians, lung specialists, dermatologists, occupational hygienists etc.) need to be on the alert on the occurrence of any possible work related cancers. The total scope of the burden of occupational injury and work-related diseases need to be communicated to the decision makers. This requires efficiently flow of information bottom-up and top-down, accentuating the need for integrated knowledge and decision-making structures and platforms.

Each country has its specific structures and platforms for OH knowledge and practice development and dissemination that are unique and thus not readily adoptable across countries. Yet benchmarking the similarities, differences and effectiveness of OH development systems in each country we will be able to produce understanding that will help each country to improve its own policy-level decision making as well as integration between policy level decision making and grassroots level development and dissemination of operational models for identifying, reporting and recording of occupational injuries and work-related diseases

In practice the project will:

  1. Benchmark the platforms and structures countries have to integrate OH development across the three distinct but interrelated levels: national decision making, OH development institutions and organizations, and workplaces at the grassroots level. What kind of structures are there in place to ensure that policy-level decision making transfers effectively into practice (top-down structures)? What kind of unique and comparable operating models do the countries have at each level, and what are the benefits and caveats of each model? How does knowledge and developments at the grassroots level inform policy making (bottom-up structures)? How arenationallevel OH institutions and development organizations operating to ensure both better informed policy making and workplace knowledge dissemination (OH institutions as middle level top-down and bottom-upknowledgebrokers).
  1. Find, develop and pilot new operating models at and/or across the three different levels to improve the effectiveness of the national OH development system to identify, report and record occupational injuries and work-related diseases for prevention.

Figure: National OH development system with three levels (conceptual model)

Costs and timing

The project could be for 3-5 years and involve NDPHS/BSN countries minimum, and likely also other MODERNET countries. The estimated cost could be anything between 5-15 million euros.