131016/tl
Twenty-second Annual Meeting of the Baltic Sea Network onOccupational Health and Safety
Dates: 21–22 September 2016
Venue:Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, Uimalankatu 1, Tampere
Conference room: Meeting room B147
MINUTES
Opening of the Meeting
Dr Timo Leino opened the meeting on behalf of Professor Antti Koivula, Director General, Finnish Institute of Occupational Health (FIOH), who was delayed due to traffic problems. After arriving Professor Antti Koivulawelcomed the participants to the meeting.
Session I: Current international programmes on occupational health and safety
Dr Elizabet Paunovic, Head, WHO European Centre for Environment and Health, Ms Nancy Leppink, Chief, Labour Administration, Labour Inspection and Occupational Safety and Health Branch (LABADMIN/OSH), ILO, Dr Jukka Takala, President, The International Commission on Occupational Health (ICOH), and Mr William Cockburn, Chief, EU-OSHA presented their organization’s current activities on occupational health and safety (presentations annexed). All the international organizations reiterated their continuous support to the BSN network.
Session II: Structure and communication within BSN
All the BSN-country representatives and the ILO, WHO, EU-OSHA and ICOH, noted that the BSN network is very useful, which is indicated by thelong-term commitment of the participating institutions and the successfulprojects conducted under the umbrella of the network. It is also an official knowledge-network for the Northern Dimension Partnership on Public Health and SocialWell-being(NDPHS), and a sister network for the South East European Networkfor Workers’ Health (SEENWH).
The common understanding was that the BSN network is needed and should continue.More focus should be put on externally funded research and surveillance of OHS and on developing methodologies and recommendations for best practices at work. The topics should be relevant to the international requirements stated by the ILO and WHO, link with the EU strategies (for most countries), and have a strong national focus and benefit. This leads to a regionally more effective work approach. The benefit of such joint work need to be made evident to the political decision makers as part of the Action Plan and NDPHS “Health at Work” Strategy, which are based on the strategies of WHO, ILO and EU.
Due to the budget cuts and reduction of personnel the Finnish Institute of Health (FIOH) cannot anymore serve as the secretary of the BSN network. It was agreed to introduce a new model of a two-year rotating coordinator-ship. The Rīgas Stradiņa Universitāte, Latvia promised to take the first shift. To save the costs, the Annual Meetings will be organised in a same manner as this time, in connection with a national/international event. The individual member states of NDPHS have appointed official members to OSH EG and promised to ensure their participation, which should be of help when organising joint BSN and OSH EG meetings. Work group meetings and other meetings will be increasingly held by using Skype for business and video conferencing.
The website of the BSN ( will continue. FIOH will take care of the annual running costs, but is not willing to invest money on the further development of the BSN website. On the other hand, the site is just opened in 2015 and is in good shape.The member countries are encouraged to update their data with their own passwords. Dr Timo Leino will upload the materials of the current meeting, and pass on the admin rights to Latvia to Dr Ivars Vanadziņš.
Session III: Reporting the status of various projects
Research Professor Hannu Rintamäki, FIOH, presented a project aimed to establish “Arctic Network on Occupational Health and Safety (ANOSH)”in connection with the Finnish Chairmanship of the Arctic Council, Occupational Health and Industrial Ecology. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has allocated funds for the preparatory face of the project (IBA funding) for 8/2016-8/2017. The project aims at promoting occupational health and safety in Arctic working places by increasing the well-being at work with the support of collaboration between research institutes and companies. The project will collaborate with the BSN network and offers possibility to disseminate information by using electronic newsletter.
Dr Riitta Sauni, Chief Physician, Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, presented a project called“Better prevention, identification and reporting of work-related and occupational diseases and emerging risks - Prevention Reporting Identification Work-Related and Occupational Diseases”.The funding from The European Neighbourhood Instrument (ENI) will be confirmed in December 2016. If the funding decision is positive, the project will start in the beginning of 2017 and will last two years. The expected results are lists of “comparable” occupational diseases as well as information on their criteria and recognition practice in the NDPHS member countries and Belorus, estimated number of work-related diseases as well as recommendations for reliable recording of work-related and occupational diseases. (annex)
Dr Eda Merisalu, Tarto University, Estonia told about the Quality assurance of Occupational health training. It was agreed to continue preparing a project proposal toexplore the training needs in the individual countries with the aim to develop suitable curricula for several countries in the region. (annex)
Mr Timo Järvensivu, consultant had a talk about the principles of networking (annex) continued by Ms. Jaana Lerssi-Uskelin from FIOH, who introduced the National Network on Well-being at Work at Finnish Workplaces (TYHYX project, annex). The project allows to support a few countries in the Baltic region in preparing e.g. a project plan for COST funding. The representatives of ILO and WHO promised their support.
Dr Timo Leino introduced a concept plan (annex) based on the European Union COST project “Monitoring Occupational Diseases and tracing New and Emerging Risks in a Network” (MODERNET), which was ongoing in 2010-2014. The idea 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. A group work was conducted on three themes: 1) How do you see the possibilities to participate and run the project successfully? 2) What should happen and who should be involved in order to achieve the goal of the COST project proposal in your country?, and 3) What are the benefits of international networking from your national perspective? Based on the group work and discussion, it was agreed to continue preparing a project plan with a note to check if the COST could agree to fund an action-type-of-case-study on the topic.
Session IV: OSH-EG and BSN cooperation
As the chair of the OSH-EG, Mr Wiking Husberg from the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, Department for Occupational Safety and Health, presentedshortly the NDPHS strategy renewal and OSH-EG action plan until 2020 after which the BSN and NDPHS / OSH-EG work plans for 2016-17 were discussed.
Country reports: The member countries of the BSN participating in the meeting presented a country report on OSH needs and undergoing/planned activities (annexed)
The Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, Finland together with the Ministry of Manpower, Singapore and the International Commission on Occupational Health (ICOH) will arrange the special event in the ILO XXI World Congress on Safety and Health at Work 2017 Singapore ( Among other matters the results of the report “Reliable occupational accident registration - indicator for prevention” (Realocc Accidents project result) will be disseminated and promoted there.
The nextBSN Annual Meeting was agreed to be held jointly with the NDPHS Expert Group of OSH on28-30 September 2017, St Petersburg, Russia hosted by the FSBSI "Research Institute of Occupational Health" / Director Igor Bukhtiyarov and ProfessorNina Rubtsova who were warmly thanked for their promise to organize the meeting.
Closing of the Meeting
Dr Timo Leino thanked all the participants for their active participation and international organizations for their support, and handed over the coordination responsibility to Latvia, Dr Ivars Vanadziņš.
Summary by
Timo Leino, FIOH
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