I am very proud of the NIOH staff members that participated in and made significant contribution to the ICOH congress in Dublin this year, which took place from 29 April – 4 May 2018. My contribution really centred around the ICOH position papers on TB and participating in the WHO Collaborating Centre meeting that preceded the ICOH congress. This important conference takes place every 3 years and the theme this year was “Occupational Health and Wellbeing: Linking Research to practice”. The congress was an important occasion to contribute to academic development by sharing state of the art researches, knowledge, and experience in the OSH field.
In addition to the cutting-edge research being conducted by the Institute, the NIOH is playing an important role as the WHO Collaborating Centre global coordinator for vulnerable workers, which includes informal economy workers. We, as the National Institute, are confident that with dedication and hard work from all of us as well as collaborations and contributions from players in the world of work that we can meet our obligations with regards to this significant global responsibility.
You will find the ICOH TB position papers we presented at the Congress at the following web-link: http://www.icohweb.org/site/ICOH-TB-Statements.asp
The two ICOH position papers cover TB in health workers and TB in silica exposed workers. Dr Muzimkhulu Zungu and myself were part of the team who wrote the health worker paper and Professor David Rees was part of the team working on the silica exposed worker paper. It is the hope of ICOH that the basic message of primary prevention through workplace interventions can strengthen the declaration of the UN General Assembly High Level meeting on TB which will take place in New York in September 2018. An Interactive Civil Society meeting on TB was held from June 3-6 2018, in New York, in preparation for the September meeting and we trust these interactions will help profile OHS as well. Ultimately it is about how our interventions have a positive impact on the lives of workers, on workplaces and on the sustainability of our economic activities.
Let us all continue to work together to achieve decent work for all!