The 6Th Meeting of TG-OSH / NDPHS

The 6Th Meeting of TG-OSH / NDPHS

The 6th meeting of TG-OSH / NDPHS

Date and place4 June 2014 Lodz, Poland

ParticipantsWikingHusberg (Finland), Carsten Brück (Germany), Sarah Copsey (EU-OSHA), RaimondaEicinaite-Lingiene (Lithuania), Aliya Kosbayeva (WHO Euro), Suvi Lehtinen (Finland), JormaRantanen (Finland), Piotr Sakowski (Poland), Yogindra Samant (Norway), IvarsVanadzins (Latvia), Mirkka Salmensaari (Finland)

WikingHusberg opened the meeting and welcomed the representatives of TG-OSH.

Concerning the representatives of the countries, RaimondaEicinaite will askif RemigijusJankauskaswill continue as a chair in TG-OSH. Polish representative isProf. JolantaWalusiak-Skorupa.PiotrSakowski told they have suggested a group of four representatives to make sure someone will be able to participate the meetings, but it still needs to wait for the confirmation from the Ministry of Health, Poland. Dr. Aliya Kosbayeva and Dr. ElizabetPaunovicrepresent the WHO.

  1. NDPHS Strategy for 2014–2020

The strategy sentencewas discussed and finalized during the day. NDPHS aims at:

Strengthening occupational health and safety and well-being at work through information systems, workplace activities, occupational health services and appropriate indicators.

JormaRantanen reminded that there is a lot of confusion about the concepts in occupational health circles. He strongly recommendedto keep the comprehensive understanding of occupational health, with all five elements, as it is. It has been earlier found out that we need to have Labour Inspection activities and occupational health services working hand in hand.

2. EU-OSHA Bilbao-activities in occupational health and safety

Sarah Copsey presented the activities of EU-OSHA whichwants to keep focus on better health and safety for all.OSH-Wiki will be launched in the XX World Congress in August 2014 in Frankfurt.EU-OSHA invites NDPHS to make a joint article on Northern activities in OSH for the Wikipedia-system. Carsten Brück introduced OSH-Wiki where there are 200-300 articles on OSH:
JormaRantanen told that it would be highly important to add occupational health services (OHS)into the pages, it seemed to be missing from the list of contents.

EU-OSHA continues adding models to the library of OiRA. It is an online risk-assessment tool library for companies.New project deals with estimating the cost of OH&S.WikingHusberg mentioned thatthe costs of OH&S has also been calculated also by Guy Ahonen/FIOH. Guy hascalculated how much money would be saved if people could work up till retirement. Individual costs of injured person is also calculated.

JormaRantanen reminded about a concern which affects whole Europe: Traditional occupational hygiene is disappearing.Still, many critical exposures, such as asbestos, need reliable exposure data.Sarah Copsey promised to take the message back where there are gaps in OSH system.

3. TG-OSH Health at work – Occupational accident registration (Realocc)

WikingHusberg opened the situation of the project: Last year we found seed money funds for planning the project. In February there was a meeting about the project in Tampere. The first paper on the problem has been approved by the ministries in NDPHS-meeting in November 2013. The name of the policy paper is:Injury at work – a hidden tragedy.

Project costs are eligible between 23.1.2014-22.3.2015. IvarsVanadzinssuggested that the actual project would be finished by 28 Feb 2015 to have time for reporting. Ivarssuggested if we should also ask what is real cost of accident, not only real numbers.There is an Excel-site which counts the costs of accidents – Ivars can send the link to calculator. People are using

A report of 40–50 papers will be needed as an end-result of the project which consists of:

  1. current situation
  2. main layout for the big project
  3. report on funding

JormaRantanen suggestedcollecting data on work-related accidents from as many different sources as possible, for example from trade unions. Kari Kurppa reminded that the ILO yearbook gives basis data for the situation. First objective is to see how comparable the countries are.

a)Comparison between countries on legislation and notification

Yogindra Samant has made an electronic questionnaire for the survey but it was decided to make the country survey with six other questions, as the basic data already is available.

WikingHusberg suggested six questions for the countries to be answered and reported in BSN Annual Meeting 15-16 September 2014 in Vilnius. Yogindra will look at the questions, improve them and send for comments. The task schedule is found in “Decisions”.

  1. Existing information for each country.
  2. Can you update something? Are there other sources for data?
  3. What can be the reasons to the huge differences in reporting? –open question.
  4. What possible other sources for accidents, household surveys trade union surveys, collect them to get more information
  5. What are the incentives for reporting/not reporting/not registering as occupational accidents
  6. What do you think about the indicators, absolute numbers or accident/100 000 workers, or accident/1milj hours

Kari Kurppa told thatfor indicators we definitely need absolute numbers and rates. EUROSTAT uses no of cases/100 000, which is easily understandable. Million work hours are more difficult to understand. Men and women need to be reported separately.

Piotr Sakowski asked if we know what data are collected and regarded as occupational accidents in different countries.

Yogindra Samant told thateven if EUROSTAT has official criteria, still each country has its own way to report. For example, in Norway maritime accidents are not recorded even if it is a significant part of work-related accidents.

WikingHusberg suggested more specific questions:Who is collecting?What is missing? Are all sectors reported?

IvarsVanadzinssaid: It´s more interesting to hear from other resources than the official, what numbers they have in their statistics.

Aliya Kosbayeva said: Approach proposal should have mathematical model, neutral model between countries.

b) Comparative analysis of national statistics

Kari Kurppa showed the focal point for the survey by explaining the Estonian situation: fatal accidents are calculated to occur much more often than in EU15 – on the other hand, non-fatal accidents seem to occur far more seldom than in EU15. This shows clearly that there is underreporting in occupational non-fatal accidents.

Aliya Kosbayeva opened an important view to be considered: For example in Russian Federation 40% of workforce is self-employed, and registered as companies. They do not have social security, and do not report to system in case of injury but seek help from public health care. Secondly, there is a competition between the eastern countries to show good numbers in, for example, baby mortality. It depends on how long the baby lives if he/sheis reported into the infant morbidity statistics. Thirdly,30% of workforce are emigrants, not existing officially as workers.

Kari Kurppa suggested round table discussions in each BSN-country to hear opinions what should we do about the registration of occupational accidents.

WikingHusberg told thatthe Advisory Group has been working on the issue of how to expand legal self-employment. A paper has been published in28 April 2014.

Suvi Lehtinen suggested that it might be good also to look at economical aspects in the project, not just counting the accidents. Also, for a 3-5 year project there should be a coordinator who has resources enough. Participating institutes andparticipants’ roles must be clarified. By Vilnius meeting we should have aplan about it.

JormaRantanensaid: Generally, we are moving in our countries’ strategies in quarterly targets. In decision-making everybody needs evidence-based policy. They desperately need to be based on reliable statistics. This is good to mention on papers for politicians.

3c Riga hospital registering work-related accidents

IvarsVanadzinstold they will hopefully have new data on Riga hospital’s way of registering occupational accidents available in BSN-meeting. To make it official it needs to be taken to Labour Inspection.

Sarah Copsey told that general hospital statistics can be asked from Elke Schneider, EU-OSHA, Bilbao.

Decisions on Realocc-project:

It was decided that Yogindra Samant will make a model of Norway on how to answer the six questions, and will send the questions & Norwegian model first for comments to Ivars+Wiking.

15 July Yogi´s Norwegian model and the modified 6 questions for comments to Wiking+Ivars

31 July Ivars’ comments back

31 July Ivars sends email addresses of people involved in the Realocc-project to Wiking/Yogindra

During August – final questionnaire of the six issues from Yogi to Wiking+Ivars+Suvi

We will look at the questionnaire at BSN meeting and send it out after the meeting, at the end of September 2014. Replies are asked from the TG-OSH representatives.

In the paper the accident data should be based in ILO yearbook (KK).Also, gender information for Kari’s Table2 should be asked from Norway, Germany, Latvia, Poland, maybe not Russia? (WH).

IvarsVanadzins will prepare in June 2014 before midsummer:

-1-pager describing the project and inviting countries formally – sends to WH who sends it to NDPHS country representatives

-a short text about the project for the next NDPHS-newsletter

-some sentences for KOOP about job description (further communication with Carsten Brück)

  1. Development of policy paper “Healthy Lifestyles in Healthy Working Conditions” WikingHusberg told the background:Interest of WHO came up some years ago to investigate about WHP in Baltic countries.Rokho Kim started it, Elizabeth Paunovic continued and nowDr. Aliya Kosbayeva had received the task to be continued with Peter Westerholm/Sweden.

Peter introduced a project plan in 2013 BSN Annual Meeting and sent the invitation to participate to the BSN-countries. Pilot should include minimum of Sweden plus 2-3 other countries. Resources are being applied from the Swedish Institute Seed Funding. Original plan was that they would have got the money last year (2013) but it did not realize. At present, Swedish Institute has a new budget and guidelines, but Westerholm has not received new regulations. Hopefully we hear from Swedish Institute before BSN-meeting in September.

  1. NDPHS Strategy

The Star Table has been very useful, as it combines the strategies of ILO, WHO, and EU-OSH. Experts of BSN have been filling up the table. Recently, as the table has been filled with three stars, arrows have been added pointing out that the original goal has been reached, and things are proceeding further in the country.

New strategy paper has been commented by WikingHusberg(red) Suvi Lehtinen(blue). The meeting made more changes into the paper.

More comments are welcome for the strategy.WikingHusberg and Suvi Lehtinen will come up with new version for BSN meeting, in whichissues are more focused, and more indicators are added.

Kari Kurppa suggested that we should build up a multi-cultural list of OSH definitions. Kari will send the terminology used in legislation in Estonia, to start with.

6. Funding opportunities

Suvi Lehtinen mentioned that Horizon 2020 has some options to apply for project funding.

  1. Future plans

XX World Congress on OSH on 24-27 August 2014, Frankfurt, Germany (side event?)

20th Annual Meeting of the BSN on 15-16 September 2014, Vilnius, Lithuania

Realocc-meeting later Autumn 2014?

TG-OSH meeting Spring 2015 Riga, Latvia

PAC 2015 OSH side event results of Realocc project, Healthy Lifestyle, updated Health at Work Strategy

At the end Piotr Sakowskifrom Nofer Institute expressed their greatfulness for the TG-OSH-team taking part of the 60th anniversary of the NoferInstitute and for sharing knowledge in the seminaron 3 June.WikingHusberg thanked Nofer Institute for the great hospitality on behalf of TG-OSH.

Mirkka Salmensaari / FIOH 18 June 2014

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