Topic Centre – Occupational Safety and Health 2013

Status:

completed 04/2014

Aims:

In 2009, the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) set up its Topic Centre Occupational Safety and Health (TC-OSH). The TC-OSH is to run for four years. Between 10 and 15 projects are conducted each calendar year. For the current year, the focus lies in the areas of current and emerging issues in the health sector, including home care and institutional care, cancer of occupational origin, OSH legislation, organizational interventions relating to psychosocial risks, case studies into safety and health at work among small and medium-sized enterprises, support for the conference on research priorities in the field of OSH, and workplace risks to reproduction. In addition, EU-OSHA has charged the TC-OSH with extending the OSH wiki (a wiki for occupational safety and health, similar to Wikipedia) launched in 2011. The activities conducted in the TC-OSH have the aim of reducing occupational accidents and diseases in the EU. With its projects, the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work supports this strategy by surveying and gathering information on safe workplaces and preparing this information in the interests of the safety and health of workers at work.

Activities/Methods:

The work of all projects was shared between the members of an international consortium. In 2013, the IFA was involved in the project entitled ''Collection of case studies into safety and health at work among small and medium-sized enterprises". Within this project, the IFA surveyed case studies from Germany, Austria, Finland, Denmark and Luxembourg. In 2013, it delivered seven further articles for the creation of the international OSH Wiki. The IFA was also involved in management of the TC-OSH and of the Topic Centre's Advisory Group.

Results:

In 2013, the IFA contributed seven articles to the international OSH Wiki. The subjects of the articles were: skin exposure (to liquids), protective gloves, an introduction to ultraviolet radiation at work, exposure to natural ultraviolet radiation at work and corresponding prevention strategies, noise, electromobility, and the human-machine interface (collaborative robots). The OSH Wiki platform will be presented at the World Congress in Frankfurt from 24 to 27 August 2014, when it will also officially go online. The portal will then be open to all experts, enabling the content to be expanded, updated and developed further.

The IFA has delivered an Austrian case study as part of the project entitled ''Collection of case studies into safety and health at work among small and medium-sized enterprises". The case studies constitute part of an overall project which examines the economic dimension of OSH measures and describes the economic benefit, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises.

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