The institution – if it covers occupational diseases – participates in the development of a national strategy on occupational diseases and the regular updating of the national list of occupational diseases.
Guideline code
PREV_02700
Mechanism
Mechanism
- The prevention department should establish specific prevention measures based on workplace and occupational disease data.
- The prevention department should ensure that all prevention measures are designed in line with internationally accepted good practice (e.g. concerning elimination of risks, reduction of risk levels, technical and organizational measures for the control of risks, use of personal protective equipment).
- The prevention department should ensure that all prevention measures include a range of actions (e.g. measurement of exposures, substitution of hazardous substances, actions to reduce levels of exposure and the number of exposed workers, instruction and training of exposed workers, motivation for healthy behaviour, motivation to establish a work environment that avoids presenteeism, use of personal protective equipment).
- The prevention department should ensure that prevention activities include regular preventive medical examinations, because these enable early detection of occupational diseases and encourage healthy practices in the workplace.
- The management should ensure good cooperation between the institution and the public health system because occupational diseases are often not detected as such by general practitioners.
- The prevention department should also address the prevention of work-related conditions such as musculoskeletal disorders and mental health problems as they are often directly linked to work exposure and can be a major cause of absenteeism.
Structure
Structure
- The board should support or initiate national discussions on establishing prevention and compensation schemes for occupational diseases, based on a national list of occupational diseases. The national list may refer to the regularly updated ILO List of Occupational Diseases.
- The board should develop specialized programmes for the prevention of occupational diseases.
- The board should involve the social partners and health insurance bodies in its activities to prevent and compensate occupational diseases.
Title HTML
Guideline 20. Prevention of occupational diseases
Type
Guideline_1
Weight
31