Occupational health / created by Kerry Gardiner, Professor of Occupational Health, School of Public Health, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, David Rees, Emeritus Professor, School of Public Health, University of the Witwatersrand, National Institute for Occupational Health, Johannesburg, South Africa, Anil Adisesh, Associate Professor and Division Director Occupational Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Head of Division Occupational Medicine, St. Michael's Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, David Zalk, Director of Occupational Hygiene; University of Illinois at Chicago, School of Public Health, Global Program on Occupational Health Practice Onlline, San Jose, California, USA, Malcolm Harrington, John Malcolm Harrington CBE, Emeritus Professor of Occupational Medicine, University of Birmingham, UK ; with contributions from Dr. Roxane Gervais, (Chapter 11) Director, Practical Psychology Consultancy Ltd, Hull, UKJoan Saary.

Includes index.

Occupational health services : an international perspective -- Occupational diseases -- Occupational infections -- Clinical evaluations -- Occupational toxicology -- Occupational cancer -- Occupational hygiene : gases, vapours, dusts and fibres -- Physical hazards : light, heat, noise, vibration, pressure and radiation -- Musculoskeletal disorders -- Psychosocial aspects of the workplace -- Risk assessment -- Risk management -- Principles of occupational epidemiology -- Personal protection of the worker -- Tertiary prevention -- Special issues in occupational health -- Expert and medicolegal report writing -- Ethical aspects of occupational health.

"Occupational health (OH) is a multifaceted and multidisciplinary activity concerned with the prevention of ill health in working populations. This involves a consideration of the two-way relationship between work and health; wherein, it is as much about the effects of the working environment on the health of workers as to the influence of the workers' state of health on their ability to perform the tasks for which they were engaged. The main aim of OH is to prevent, rather than cure, ill health from wherever it arises in the working environment. A joint International Labour Organization/World Health Organization (ILO/WHO) Committee defined the subject back in 1950 as: "the promotion and maintenance of the highest degree of physical, mental and social wellbeing of workers in all occupations". The relationship between the worker and the world of work is, necessarily, complex (Fig. 1.1). The worker brings to the place of work a pre-existent health status influenced by many factors-only some of which are under the workers' direct control; and hence, any disease/illness/outcome that manifests in the individual has to be viewed in this context. The health outcome could be caused by work, modulated by work or completely unrelated to it. Such a view of occupational health is, however, predominantly a medical model, however, the situation was and has been realised to be very much more complex"--