Recent Observations and New Dimensions of Occupational Health

Occupational Health (OH) is an important chapter of Public Health but its visibility is poor and
continues to decrease. Examples of this worrying trend show that it impacts on our society regarding
health of the working population and the retired individuals and on the economy through huge
expenses for health, absenteeism, psychosocial problems, loss of performance and quality of work,
etc. Moreover, all the partners involved in OH have to take their responsibility of this matter. Beside
the prevention of diseases, the health and wellbeing promotion has to be improved. The OH
professionals have to enlarge the scope of their expertise; the academic institutions and research and
education centers have to give more support to OH and the social partners and the decision-makers
(politicians) have to put OH in their priorities. This paper is not a review of the new dimensions of OH
but an overview of the emerging issues that have to be developed, based on the author’s experience
of more than 40 years.