Minutes of the 2nd General Assembly of the International Commission on Occupational Health on Friday, 28 February 2003, at 15.00-16.30
Mabu Hotel, Room A - Iguassu Falls, Brazil

Release 2/7/03

The Second General Assembly of the ICOH 2003 Congress was held as an adjoining part of the Closing Ceremony of the Congress. The General Assembly was opened by the newly elected President, Professor Jorma Rantanen, who welcomed all the participants and announced that there would not be any simultaneous interpretation available at the Meeting.

1. Opening address by the past President, Professor Bengt Knave

Professor Bengt Knave thanked the former Board for its hard work and achievements and told it had been a pleasure to serve ICOH as a President. Professor Bengt Knave expressed his pleasure to continue to work with the new Officers and shortly introduced them and their professional background. The composition of the Board for the triennial 2003-2006 is as follows:

2. Presidential address by the new President, Professor Jorma Rantanen

The new President of ICOH started his presidential address by thanking the former President and the outgoing Board for the work excellent they have done for the benefit of ICOH and occupational health worldwide. He also warmly welcomed Professor Bengt Knave's crystallised intelligence to support the efforts of the new Board. After this, the floor was given to the other Officers who introduced themselves and their main interests and duties in the new Board. The new Vice President, Professor Alain Cantineau has a long experience in teaching medical practitioners and occupational health and safety specialists. In consequence of his work in an university hospital in Strasbourg, the development of occupational health services is one of his interests. In the new Board, Professor Alain Cantineau will be responsible for issues related to coordination of Scientific Committees and he will serve as a liaison with a Scientific Committee and a Network. The Senior Vice President, Dr. Ruddy Facci engaged himself to continue to develop occupational health and safety in the developing countries. In the Board, he will, among other things, coordinate the work of the National Secretaries.

The Secretary General, Dr. Sergio Iavicoli will be in charge of administrative and financial tasks in the new Board. One of his objectives is to facilitate the communication within ICOH and increase the membership in general and of young professionals in particular. As a former Secretary of the Scientific Committee on History of Occupational and Environmental Prevention, he stressed the importance of learning from the past and recognized the significance of the historical heritage of ICOH for his work. The Secretary General gave a historical review on the former ICOH Secretariats. After operating for 15 years in Singapore, the new Secretariat will be placed at the Italian National Institute for Occupational Safety and Prevention, ISPESL, in Rome. Everything will be done to make this transfer in the smoothest and quickest possible way.

Professor Jorma Rantanen, concluded that there have been many major transitions in the ICOH leadership as many new Officers and Board Members have been elected to it. This had also partly affected the preparations of the General Assembly and may lengthen the transitory period.

Summary of challenges and opportunities in occupational health. The President concluded that the 27th International Congress on Occupational Health in Iguassu Falls, Brazil was a great success and can be seen as one of the milestones in the history of ICOH. The Scientific content of the Iguassu Congress reflects the state of occupational health in the world, and therefore the President went through some key observations concerning the current trends and challenges in occupational health that will also affect ICOH activities. The Iguassu Congress showed that the globalisation of health and challenges to equity and health at work is a reality in the work life all around the world. On the one hand, the high figures indicating the loss of life years, health and work ability due to the persistence of traditional occupational health hazards prove that these problems still exist and need to be considered. On the other hand, problems connected to the so-called new economy such as time pressure, stress, unemployment and exclusion from work have emerged. We are also facing some demographic and social challenges related to aging and young workers, migrants, under-served and vulnerable populations. New biological hazards and psychosocial problems related to new types of work also challenge ICOH to use its best endeavours. In a larger societal context, the economic recession has led on to outsourcing of occupational health services of big companies to external units. However, the best services are generally provided by inbuilt units. Occupational health is also an activity of peace, and therefore we have to hope that ICOH can continue its work in peace.

Despite some alarming trends in occupational health, positive signs are also seen in the horizon. ICOH's challenge is to make effective application of basic research that is done in the field of occupational health. New communication technologies also offer new opportunities enabling us to keep better records, monitor the existing data more in detail, communicate better, share data and network more effectively. In the industrialized word, renewing of occupational legislation is one of the positive signs in the sight. The President also mentioned the EU enlargement as one of the big opportunities for ICOH to increase its membership and extend its activities. In the newly industrialized and developing countries, the importance of occupational health has been understood and some progress can be seen. The countries in transition offer a favourable soil to increase the membership.

ICOH's international policy. When it comes to the international occupational health activities, ICOH has many important allies with whom we need to work closer in order to attain our goals. Both ILO and WHO have invited ICOH to work with them. For example, the WHO Collaborating Centres Network has welcomed a strong ICOH participation in their activities. The implementation of their Global Strategy on Occupational Health for All is a goal ICOH can fully share. During the Iguassu Congress, also the EU has contacted ICOH, and stronger links with them will be built. ICOH has also many partners in cooperation among the NGOs. A joint declaration on occupational hygiene had been signed with the International Occupational Hygiene Association, IOHA, and a Liaison Officer from the Board will be appointed to take care of this cooperation. The new ICOH Board has also good contacts with the International Ergonomics Association, IEA, and the cooperation with them will be enforced. Another important partner for ICOH is the International Social Security Association ISSA, and the Board will examine the possibilities to work closer with them. Also WWCS (Work with Computer Systems) covers a very important field of studies, and Professor Bengt Knave was asked to act as a Liaison Officer in relation to WWCS.

The first concrete step on the way to the closer international cooperation is the Board's initiative on a Global ICOH/WHO/ILO Action for Basic OHS for All. This initiative will be discussed more in detail this spring in an ILO Conference in Geneva.

Tasks of the new Board. The President estimated that the geographical distribution of the new Board was relatively good, but the representation of the Sub-Saharan Africa was missing. The uneven gender structure and the absence of nurses were also regarded as serious weaknesses. The President promised to use his right to appoint new members to the Board concerning this situation. An ideal new Board member would represent all these three groups. Next, the President said a few words about the division of work within the Board. As it was already mentioned earlier, the Senior Vice President Ruddy Facci will coordinate the work of National Secretaries and the ICOH membership policy. The other Vice President Alain Cantineau will be in charge of Scientific Committees and other coordination tasks. The Secretary General, Dr. Sergio Iavicoli will be responsible for implementing good administrative and managerial practice and improving communication within ICOH. He will also be in charge of recruiting new members and creating contacts with scientific medical associations.

The President gave some examples on tasks the New Board will address. The work concerning the ICOH Constitution, Bye-laws and guidelines will be continued. The Board Members Guidotti, Lehtinen, Kristensen and Iavicoli will take up the work in the Financial Committee. Dr. Marco Maroni will liaise with the work related to rural health and pesticides and the respective Scientific Committees. The Vice President Alain Cantineau will be in charge of occupational health of the health care sector and core curricula in occupational health and safety in collaboration with GOMEC. There will also be one Task Group on Communication that combines issues related to the ICOH website and newsletters. Equally, a Task Group concerning ICOH's centennial celebrations and centennial declaration will be established.

Forthcoming events. Finally, the President presented some of the forthcoming events of the next triennium. The ICOH Mid-term Meeting is planned to take place in January 2005 in Helsinki in connection of another international conference. Preliminary preparations for these conferences will be started immediately and the dates will be announced later. The Milan ICOH Congress in 2006 will, of course, be a very important event from the viewpoint of ICOH. Also the Scientific Committees will be involved in numerous events on their own. ICOH will also participate in many important events organized by our important partners such as ILO and WHO.

Task Groups, Scientific Committees, National Secretaries. The President noticed that the previous Board has left numerous tasks of which the new Board will take care and gave few examples on them. These included issues like ethics, transparency and the establishment of the World Occupational Safety and Health Day. The Board will also get down to new tasks such as problems related to biological hazards like HIV/Aids. The issue of child labour will be handled by joining our partners in their efforts. A task Group on Centennial Celebrations will also be established.

It is also very important to get more concrete outputs from the Scientific Committees. In practice, this means that clear objectives concerning the outputs should be set. The activeness of the Scientific Committees is especially need concerning the Board's initiative for Basic OHS for All. When it comes to the Scientific Committees, the floor was also given to the Vice president, Dr. Alain Cantineau who told that ICOH has 35 Scientific Committees and 6 Networks. The Committees have been extremely active in their work and organized many meetings. As the Scientific Committees put the ICOH mission into action, this was seen as a very positive development. During the Iguassu Meeting, the Vice President had tried to contact all the presidents of the Scientific Committees to see whether the Committees will continue their activities in the next triennial and if there will be any changes in their leadership. Unfortunately, all the Officers were not reached, but they will be contacted after the Congress via mail or e-mail. The Scientific Committees will also be asked s to give a short report on their activities. These documents as well as an updated list of the Officers of the Scientific Committees will be put on the Internet and disseminated by the National Secretaries.

The Senior Vice President, Dr. Ruddy Facci addressed the General Assembly concerning the membership issue and National Secretaries. In his opinion, the National Secretaries work as ICOH ambassadors in their countries and are therefore an important pillar in the ICOH strategy. He concluded that as much as ICOH needs more members, occupational health professionals need ICOH. Thus, the interests and benefits are mutual. He also suggested that a new Task Group could be established to study and analyse these benefits. The Secretary General, Dr. Sergio Iavicoli added that 71 new members had join ICOH during the 27th International Congress on Occupational Health, Iguassu Falls, Brazil. He welcomed the new members to ICOH.

3. New Logo

The last point the President wanted to bring up in the General Assembly was the renewing of the ICOH logo. He told that the ICOH Officers had discussed the matter in their Meeting and wanted to make their proposal. The need to modernize the ICOH logo had been brought out

because the interpretation of the old logo had become difficult, and it was felt that it did not denote anymore the ICOH mission. In their proposal, the new ICOH Officers wanted to emphasize and bring out the multidisciplinary and global character of ICOH without giving up the valuable centennial heritage.

4. ICOH Congress 2009 - Bids results

The Secretary General, Dr. Sergio Iavicoli, reported the results of the votes for the venue of the 29th International Congress on Occupational Health to be held in 2009: Cape Town has been elected.

The total number of ballot papers was 253. There were no spoilt ballot papers counted.

5. Comments

Charles P. Roos, South Africa congratulated the new Board that it had taken HIV/AIDS on its agenda and regretted that this important issue had been almost inexistent in the Congress programme. The President agreed that HIV/AIDS is an important work-related issue and told that this problem will be addressed in a Specific Task Group.

Hilkka Riihimäki, Finland found the Board's proposal to use the Scientific Committees to produce some informative material good and challenging. On the other hand, she pointed out that the Scientific Committees had very scarce resources and asked whether ICOH could provide some funding to support the work of the Committees. The question was answered by the Secretary General, Dr.Sergio Iavicoli who told that ICOH's revenues were mostly dependent on membership fees, and therefore the economy on the whole was on limited basis. As the Scientific Committees are the backbone of ICOH, their funding will be one of the first priorities.

Jean-François Caillard, France wanted to inform that a Working Group on Code of Ethics had been established the day before the General Assembly. The Code of Ethics will also be translated into Spanish and French by 30 May 2003. He also asked whether it would be possible to have the English version of the Code of Ethics on the Internet. The President welcomed with delight these efforts and promised that the English Code of Ethics will be soon available on the Internet.

With reference to the General Assembly held in 2000 in Singapore, Dr. Julietta Rodriguez-Guzman, Colombia asked what the new Board intended to do to promote the use of the Spanish language in the activities of ICOH. The President, Professor Jorma Rantanen told that the new Board wanted to encourage the members to use Spanish, but the translations should be done on the voluntary basis due to the financial reasons.

Theodor Bazas, Greece wanted to know if ICOH could make a declaration HIV/AIDS. In general, he thought that different declarations, press releases and positions papers could raise ICOH's profile and promote occupational heath in public. Zainul Abidin Bin Hussein, Malaysia pointed out that it would be useful to summarize and write down the achievements of the Iguassu Congress. The President, Professor Jorma Rantanen answered both questions by saying that a declaration should have been prepared beforehand, but possibilities for a declaration should be examined in connection of the Milan Congress in 2006. Instead, he suggested to make a short summary of the outcomes of the Iguassu Congress. He also promised that the presidential address would be placed on the Internet.

6. Closing

The President, Professor Jorma Rantanen closed the General Assembly by stating that the days spent in Iguassu had been the most productive and thanking once again the organizers of the Congress. He also thanked all the participants for the fantastic service given to the whole working world.