"Occupational health services: Companies' friends or foes?And what about the workers?"

Dr. Brigitte Froneberg is an occupational physician and epidemiologist with sub-specialty degrees in Medical Informatics, Social Medicine, Environmental Health, holding a MD in biochemistry and a Diploma in Tropical Medicine.
She received her training at the University of Gottingen, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and at the US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) in Cincinnati.
She is a Director and Professor of the German Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in Berlin, where she was heading the Department of Occupational Health Protection for 10 years prior to her secondment to the InFocus Programme on Safety and Health at Work and the Environment (SafeWork) of the International Labour Organization (Headquarter Office Geneva) in May 2002.
She is a fellow of the ICOH and the Collegium Ramazzini.

" Knowledge management in OHS organizations, consequences for structures and functions "

Frank van Dijk, PhD, MD, is an occupational physician and since 1987 Professor in Occupational Health and head of the Coronel Institute in the Academic Medical Center of the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
The institute is a Collaborating Center in Occupational Health of the WHO and is  active in ICOH.
Current special interests are:
・　development of evidence-based occupational medicine(health) and knowledge              management in OHS.
・　evaluation of quality and effectiveness of occupational health care.
・　employees with a chronic disease; empowerment, rehabilitation.
・　mental health at work; guidelines and intervention studies.
・　postgraduate education and training.
・　registration of occupational and work-related diseases.

" Evidence-based practice guidelines in OHS: Are they AGREE-able? "

Carel Hulshof, MD, PhD, is Occupational Physician and Associate Professor in Occupational Medicine at the Coronel Institute for Occupational and Environmental Health, Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam. His main teaching and research areas are: epidemiology,  whole-body vibration; evaluation research in occupational health; predictive value of pre-employment examinations; evidence-based medicine and practice guidelines for occupational physicians. Over the last years he has been intensively involved in the development and organisation of a practice guidelines programme within the Netherlands Society of Occupational Medicine (NVAB). From January 2004 he is Co-ordinator Practice Guidelines at the Centre of Excellence of the NVAB. 

Peter Westerholm, MD, FFOM, is Professor Emeritus to the National Institute for Working Life (NIWL), Sweden. He served as a Deputy Medical Director of Sweden’s National Board of Occupational Safety and Health, consultant epidemiologist at the National Board of Health and Welfare. PW was medical adviser to the Swedish Confederation of Trade Unions during the years 1980 through 1989. He was appointed Professor of Occupational Epidemiology to the NIWL in 1990. During the years 1993-2000 he was Chairman of the ICOH Scientific Committee for Health Services Research and Evaluation in Occupational Health. In the field of epidemiology in occupational health, PW has focussed his interests mainly on cancer epidemiology, epidemiology of reproduction and work-related epidemiology of cardiovascular disease. In the fields of Health Services research his foci of interest have been quality issues of occupational health service performance and professional ethics
Professor Peter Westerholm is member of the editorial boards of three international scientific journals ? the Occupational and Environmental Medicine (UK), the Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment and Health (Finland) and, Policy and Practice in safety and Health (UK). 

Dr H.Nico Plomp is assistant professor at the Department of Public and Occupational Health of the Vrije Universiteit  Medical Centre. He studied organization sociology and registered as epidemiologist; did research on addiction and the relation of OHS’s to companies and employees. Current research is on organization of trust in doctor patient relations under different conditions.  

Dr Ewan B Macdonald is Head of the Healthy Working Lives Research Group at the University of Glasgow and also is Director of Salus, which is a large NHS-based occupational health and safety service, which provides services to the National Health Service and over 80 public and private enterprises.  He is a past President of the UK Faculty of Occupational Medicine and is immediate past President of the Occupational Medicine section of the Union of European Medical Specialists.  He has been at the forefront of developing the Healthy Working Lives Strategy and it’s implementation in Scotland and is a board member of the ICOH Health Services Research and Evaluation Committee.  In 2002 he was awarded an OBE for services to occupational medicine.

1965 to 1972: Study of engineering and business administration at Technical University of Berlin, degree: Dipl.-Ing., 1972 to 1976: research assistant in the federal commission for economical and social change.
1977 to 1999: work for the federal ministry of work, since 1991 leader of department labour law and work safety. since 01.02.1999: President and Professor of the Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (Bundesanstalt fur Arbeitsschutz) und Arbeitmedizin

David Bruinvels, MD, PhD, is occupational physician and senior researcher working at the Institute for Research in Extramural Medicine of the VU University Hospital in Amsterdam, The Netherlands (www.emgo.nl). He is also working as a chief occupational physician at Commit, one of the larger occupational health services in
The Netherlands (www.commit.nl). He has a PhD in medicine from Leiden University, The Netherlands, and is an epidemiologist. He has been focusing in his research on occupational health interventions, such as cognitive behavioural therapy of workers with common metal health problems, and standardised preoperative patient information aimed to facilitate return to work. Currently he is involved in the writing of a Dutch national guideline on worksite health promotion and the revision of the Dutch national guideline on common mental health problems in workers.

" Status and future tasks of OHS in Belgium"

He finished medical school at the K.U.Leuven in 1983 and obtained also a bachelor in psychology. He worked 7 years as a tropical doctor, mainly in Congo (ex-Zaire) were he focussed gradually on preventive medicine.He specialised in occupational health in 1990 and obtained also a master in ergonomics at U.C.Louvain after which he worked 10 years as an occupational health physician in very different sectors. He did some research projects and developed a special interest in solvent neurotoxicity. He is attached to the department of occupational health of the K.U.Leuven as an academic consulent.In 2002 He became general director of IDEWE, an external service for prevention and protection at work that provides occupational health care and risk management for over 500.000 workers in Belgium.

Education

・ 1997-2001, Dr.P.H., School of Public Health, University of Texas, Houston Health Science Center.

・ 1994-1995, MPH in Behavioral Science, University of Alabama, Birmingham.

Honors/Awards

・ Bureau of Health Promotion, Department of Health, Award for Creative Health Education Instruments, 2003, Taiwan.

Research Grant

・ NSC 2001-2003  The promotion of health behavioral change among occupational population in Taiwan.

・ DOH 2002-2003 Community health building of Taliao Hsiang, Kaohsiung Country, Taiwan.

・ NTIN 2004 A New Pilot Test for Occupational Health Promotion and Health Education Practices.

“ Status and future tasks of OHS in UK”

John Harrison, BSc. MB. ChB. MD. FRCP FRCP(Edin) FFOM, is a consultant in occupational medicine and clinical director for occupational health for Hammersmith Hospitals NHS Trust. He joined the Trust in September 2003, having been Senior Lecturer in occupational medicine at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. He is Academic Dean in the Faculty of Occupational Medicine, part of the Royal College of  physicians of London and chairman of EASOM(European Association of schools of Occupational Medicine). He is the UK national secretary for the ICOH. He is an assistant editor of Occupational Medicine, He is a co-editor of the newly published book Atlas of Occupational Health and Disease(Arnold Health Sciences).

" Status and future tasks of OHS in Japan"

Dr. Seichi Horie, M.D., M.P.H., Dr.Med.Sc., Professor of Department of Health Policy and Management, Institute of Industrial Ecological Sciences, University of Occupational and Environmental Health, Japan (UOEH), worked as an occupational physician for 10 years at a steel factory of JFE Corporation until 2001. He finished 2- year residency program in occupational medicine at University of California, San Francisco in 1993. He studied medicine at UOEH and environmental health at Graduate School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley. He is now teaching occupational health at post-graduate course in UOEH and also promoting studies regarding overwork, workers’ health information, and heat and noise exposure at work.

"Occupational Health Services in Malaysia: The Way Forward"

Dr. Mohamad Nizam Jemoin is currently a lecturer and occupational health physician in the Department of Community Health, Faculty of Medicine, National University of Malaysia. He obtained his Masters in Public Health (specializing in Occupational Health) from the National University of Malaysia in the year 2002. Apart from wide range of teaching responsibility both in the undergraduate and postgraduate programs, he is also currently involve in conducting two major occupational health research in the country which are ‘Occupational Safety and Health Risk Management System in Small and Medium Industries’ and ‘Evaluation and Prevention of Occupational Injuries Among Commercial Vehicle Drivers’. He is also frequently invited by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Malaysia and other government and private agencies to conduct training and talk on occupational safety and health. He is currently the Honorary Assistant Secretary of the Society of Occupational and Environment Medicine- Malaysian Medical Association. His major interests are in the areas of ergonomics and occupational risk assessment and management.

“Status and future tasks of OHS in France”

Gabriel PAILLEREAU, Economist; since 1994, Deputy General of the CISME (Occupational Health Services Association), which gathers nearly 350 OHS ensuring the medical supervision of 13,5 million employees in France, and of the AFOMETRA (Association for Training in Occupational Health), principal French organization for training in Occupational Health with 3 500 trainees every year, of which a third of
OH Physicians.

Member of the International Commission on Occupational Health (ICOH) since more than 15 years and, for this reason, Secretary-general of the Steering Committee of the 24th international Congress of Occupational Health in NICE (October 1993),
the most important international Congress ever organized in the field of Occupational Health (4 500 participants from 110 different countries).

" Status and future tasks of OHS in Australia"

Eva Schonstein, MHPEd, PhD, is a physiotherapist who has been a lecturing at the School of Physiotherapy at the University of Sydney, in Sydney Australia since 1988.  She is also the director Work Capability Evaluation, a consulting company dealing mostly with functional assessments as well as consulting in the area of prevention of musculoskeletal disorders for large employers such as RailCorp NSW.   Eva’s main research area is prevention of chronic disability for workers with low back pain.  The title of her PhD thesis was Evidence Based Injury Assessment and Management for Workers with Low Back Pain. In January 2004 Eva gained entry in a three year, post-doctoral program titled The Work Disability Prevention CIHR Strategic Training Program which is funded by the Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR) in collaboration with IRSST (Institut de recherche Robert-Sauve en sante et securite du travail), FRSQ (Fonds de la recherche en sante du Quebec) and REPAR (Reseau provincial de recherche en adaptation-readaptation). The main objective of this program is to develop transdisciplinary knowledge, skills, and attitudes regarding research in the area of work disability prevention.  

Jiraporn Tangkittipaporn, Bsc., Msc., PhD., is an assistant professor in Industrial and Organizational Psychology at Chiangmai University, Thailand, since 1989. After got her PhD. from Australia, She received a series of scholarships and grants, the most recent, from the Thailand Research Fund and the Asian Scholarship Foundation.  Her main teaching and research areas are: psychological assessment in industrial, ergonomics, SME competencies and international trade. She has materialized her works in numerous research publications, articles and international conferences, eg., The World SMEs Convention, The British Psychological Society Annual Conference, The International Association of Cross-cultural Psychology Congress, and The ASF Annual Fellows’ Conference,. She is also involved in academic and Community services: Chair at a Postgraduate Program of I/O Psychology, thesis advisor, administrative committee, consultant and training for companies in Thailand, and the editor for the “Bulletin of Applied Psychology” and “Bulletin of Human Resource Development” (Thai version).