International Review of Surveillance and Control of Workplace Exposures: NOHSAC Technical Report 5
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1. Introduction
The New Zealand National Occupational Health and Safety Advisory Committee (NOHSAC) and The Office of the Australian Safety and Compensation Council (OASCC) (formerly NOHSC) have identified the prevention of occupational diseases as a priority target area. To better inform the development of activities to prevent occupational disease and measure the success of actions aimed at preventing occupational disease, OASCC and NOHSAC identified a need for better information on workplace exposure to disease-causing agents.
Programmes of exposure surveillance complement disease and injury surveillance and can be used to strengthen and inform occupational disease and injury policy and prevention programmes. To these ends, information is required on the nature, extent, quality and potential replication of existing occupational exposure surveillance projects in New Zealand, Australia and overseas.
OASCC and NOHSAC engaged VIOSH Australia at the University of Ballarat to examine a matrix of exposure surveillance systems that focuses on eight priority occupational diseases (listed in 1.2c) and prepare a critical, international review of methods used for the surveillance of exposures to hazards in the workplace. This document provides that review.
1.1 Project Aim and Objectives
The project aim is to provide OASCC and NOHSAC with a critical review of international methods used for the surveillance of exposures to hazards in the workplace.
For the hazard categories, surveillance methods and priority diseases and injuries listed below, the project objectives are to:
- undertake a comprehensive review of the formal occupational health and safety (OHS) literature relating to exposure surveillance systems
- identify and collect information about the range of exposure surveillance systems that
have been developed in Australia and overseas with a particular emphasis, but not
exclusively, on:
- New Zealand
- North America
- Canada
- the UK and continental Europe
- Scandinavia
- Asia (Singapore and Malaysia in particular)
- critically review and evaluate the information about identified surveillance systems
- construct a matrix of surveillance systems (against the hazard categories, surveillance methods and priority diseases and injuries as listed in section 1.2)
- identify any inter-relationships between surveillance systems and the adoption and implementation of risk control programmes
- report on barriers and enablers to effective surveillance
- report on key components of successful surveillance systems.
