Message from the President (September, 2005)

Dear ICOH Colleagues,

Life is a continuous process of setting priorities and ICOH has gained a high priority in my personal ranking. Therefore, I am now sitting in the office and writing this message, while the marathon race of the 10th IAAF World Championships in Athletics in Helsinki City passes the office building. I hope the people on the street and two billion TV watchers will enjoy following how the world top runners, in spite of vigorous and cool showers, compete for championship in the oldest sports race ever – to be honest, I am jealous!

Developing occupational health and safety in the globalizing world is also a marathon of its kind. The trends of global economy make it very often a steep uphill running. The ICOH is living an important time to strengthen its ability to run. The last triennium of the first century of ICOH activity approaches to the end and we are preparing the next year’s Congress and other important events.

The Milan Congress is well on the way under the leadership of the President of ICOH 2006, Professor Vito Foa, the Scientific Chairman, Professor Pier Alberto Bertazzi and the local Executive Committee. You have seen in the Second Announcement a high number of sessions of various types and Professor Bertazzi is collecting continuously concrete proposals from Scientific Committees and members. We also have prepared special centennial events for the Milan celebrations (http://www.icoh2006.it/). As most of our members’ host organizations prepare budgets for the year 2006, I hope they remember to reserve funding for as many staff members’ participation in the Milan Congress as possible. And please keep in mind also that the participation fee can be substantially reduced being in good standing and by registering early (the deadline for the cheapest fee has already passed, but registering before 20 January 2006 still is cheaper than in the last minute). You are also called to observe the deadline for abstracts of the 20th September.

The forthcoming two ICOH General Assemblies and the two Board Meetings to be organized in connection of the ICOH 2006 Congress will map our activities until the year 2012 as we are going to decide the venue of the ICOH Congress following the Cape Town Congress in 2009. The individual Members and Scientific Committees are welcome to present proposals and ideas for the further development of ICOH activities. Also the preparation of the ICOH 2009 has been started and the ICOH Officers will make a site visit to ICOH 2009 Organising Committee and the Meeting Venue still this year.

As stipulated by the ICOH Constitution and Bye-Laws, our Secretary General has announced the elections for the positions of ICOH Officers (President, two Vice-Presidents, Secretary General), Board Members and National Secretaries according to the lines we discussed in the Helsinki Mid-term Meeting. The Secretary General has also given the instructions, conditions for the voting procedure and eligibility of candidates and the deadlines for the key events in the voting procedure according to the Regulations.

I would like to encourage us to run an active election which is an important sign of a healthy association. We would like to call all the eligible Members who are interested to serve in ICOH elected positions to make an action for candidacy. The rules and regulations are described once again elsewhere in this issue and you are also welcome to consult ICOH website for election procedure. Very often I have got proposals for various kinds of ICOH positions from the members or on the members who are not in good standing. Therefore, I would like to ask you to check carefully, and if needed, with the Secretary General’s office, that the proponent and the potential candidate are members in good standing as it is an absolute criterion set by our Regulations.

The WHO and ILO have held their Governing Body meetings and General Assemblies in May and June in Geneva . Both our close international collaborating partners have made important decisions which have high relevance to occupational health. It has been very encouraging that ICOH has been invited to participate by both Organizations and our views and proposals have been well received. The World Health Assembly adopted a Resolution No. 58.22 on Cancer Prevention and Control. Occupational cancer and workplace as an arena for cancer control particularly in the view of chemical safety and workplace tobacco control were included in the resolution. As WHO is now setting special expert bodies and drafts a strategy for the implementation of the Resolution the occupational health experts need to get involved.

The 93rd ILO Conference discussed in its special Committee on Occupational Health and Safety on promotion of Occupational Safety and Health and the new Framework Convention. The ICOH was invited to present its views and our ideas on Basic Occupational Health Services were included in the Committee report. The new draft Convention calls for actions for the development of occupational health services by the Member Countries.

These most important resolutions by the two UN Special Organizations will also set a great challenge to ICOH and to the occupational health community in general as we are expected and given an opportunity to provide both science-based evidence, tools and practices for the implementation of the resolutions and the ambitious new objectives in the workplace settings. This will be carried out in collaboration with the safety and health authorities and the social partners as proposed by the ILO. It was well understood that in order to get anything done at the practical level the support provided by the occupational health service infrastructure and occupational health experts is inevitable.

The second half of the year 2005 will be highly active for ICOH and for our sister organizations. The density of meetings is high. ICOH Scientific Committees will organize ten different meetings, we are going to participate in the IOHA 2005 Congress, in numerous WHO and ILO events, and a high number of regional and national events in occupational health will take place before the end of the year. We will have an opportunity to choose between several meetings every week and, in fact, it would be impossible for one person to attend even 10% of those events. These meetings deal with a huge amount of most actual scientific and practical information which should be shared with the ICOH membership as soon as possible after the closure of the meetings. I wish to repeat my call to all the ICOH Members who take part in the professional events to make a short substance-oriented summary of the most important findings of the event and send it to the Editor of the ICOH Newsletter. May I declare a competition for the Officers of the Scientific Committees in provision of such summaries from their scientific meetings.

So the remaining four months of the year will be full of both professional and association activities. They both can be considered as signs of dynamism and vitality of occupational health. Let’s make full use of the outputs generated in our numerous events for the benefit of global and national occupational health.

Jorma Rantanen
President of ICOH