EVIDENCE BASED OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH PRACTICE

The association between occupational exposures and diseases in different industries has been established a long time ago. In general, there are two distinctly different approaches for the prevention of work-related diseases. The first is primary prevention through exposure reduction and exposure control. This is the occupational hygiene approach, which makes use of health based exposure standards for chemical and biological agents in the air and translates these into exposure reduction strategies. Unfortunately this approach is not always possible or difficult to carry out. In such case, secondary prevention approach is required: early detection of occupational diseases through regular medical surveillance in order to allow early intervention and management in the hope to reduce complications from the disease.1-