Occupational health
Only 5% to 10% of workers in developing countries and 20% to 50% of those in industrialized countries have access to adequate occupational health services. The promotion of workers’ health and safety at the workplace is also inadequate. To encourage countries to support the protection and promotion of workers’ health, particularly where occupational health services do not reach, WHO has recently introduced the healthy workplaces approach. Healthy workplaces not only reinforce occupational health and safety standards, but also provide physical, organizational (e.g. workload, management style, communication) and community environments that protect and promote health and safety of the workers.
The collaborative work for integrating health protection and promotion at workplaces started in 1997, and healthy workplaces were then piloted in Shanghai, China. In response to a recommendation of the regional workshop on health-promoting workplaces held in China in December 1997, WHO produced the regional guidelines for the development of healthy workplaces in November 1999. While the regional guidelines were developed, the Philippines and Singapore initiated award programmes to encourage the management of organizations to protect and promote health of their workers. WHO also supported Viet Nam to initiate a workplace health promotion project in 1999, engaging small-scale industries in Haiphong and Hue, as part of the Healthy Cities projects in these cities.
Fact sheets
News and press releases
No news/press releases available at this time.
Relevant publications and documents
Upcoming meetings and events
No meeting/event planned at this time.