Occupational hygiene: Common trunk of specialties - occupational medicine and hygiene and epidemiology/public health
Abstract
Occupational hygiene as a discipline serving health at work which is an integral part of hygiene and epidemiology and occupational medicine: it deals with exposures to working environment factors. Increasingly, it appears that currently health risk assessment in the workplace during specific work operations is specific knowledge and skill for the prevention of health risks associated with work.
Many physicians this part of their services for the enterprise misunderstood, ignored or rejected. The importance of occupational hygiene is necessary to recall and emphasize precisely in association with the adoption Czech regulation on occupational medical/health services.
Enterprise physician must be able to identify hazards to worker's health, know the technology, materials, substances and most importantly - must be able to assess risks to worker health by evaluation of exposures (exposure assessment). The current absence of occupational hygiene education in the specialty of hygiene and epidemiology creates unjustified imbalance in comparison with other parts of this specialty, because the practice of institutes of public health and public health inspectorates still requires specific knowledge of risk assessment based on the evaluation of exposures for categorization of working operations which is today essential for the provision of occupational medical/health services.