Questionnaire-based database on occupation and health status

Abstract

About two thirds of Sweden's employees have access to occupational health services. There are about 900 occupational health units in operation. Workplaces still lacking occupational health services are small private firms, predominantly in the service sector. Management and labour organisations are expected jointly to take the responsibility for the continuing expansion of the occupational health services. Occupational health services in Sweden are concerned with technical, medical and psychosocial prevention. The basic occupational health services team includes an occupational health physician, occupational health nurse, physiotherapist and an industrial hygiene and safety engineer. In relation to the safety committee the occupational health services function as a neutral consultant in questions concerning the working environment. The goal of the occupational health services is to work towards the optimal adapation of the work to human conditions. This requires systematic technical and medical efforts. The occupational health service has to predict what can happen to employees working in different working environments, so-called primary prevention. Secondary prevention is to discover early effects of the working environment on health. Early effects are often vague and of an unspecific character. To be able to link such signs/ symptoms to factors in the working environment, it is necessary to work with groups with similar exposure to compare the relative frequency of such signs to groups similar in exposure but lacking the specific factor of interest. To make comparisons possible it is necessary to use similar or identical methods for assessments. Health examinations and assessments of working environment are often concentrated on groups of employees who are exposed to known harmful environmental factors. In the same way unknown hazards have to be watched to see what happens to employees exposed to those factors, health examination and assessment procedures have to be systematic and preferably standardized. An evaluation of the results of health check-ups can supplement the results of working environment studies and measurements of environmental factors within