Multidisciplinary model of occupational health services. Medical and non-medical aspects of occupational health.

Since 1950, the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have had a common definition of occupational health. The definition was adopted by the Joint ILO/WHO Committee on Occupational Health at its First Session (1950) and revised at its 12th Session (Geneva, November 1995). Occupational health should aim to promote and maintain the highest degree of physical, mental and social well-being of workers in all occupations; to prevent amongst workers the departure from health caused by their working conditions; to protect workers in their employment from risk resulting from factors adverse to health; to place and maintain workers in an occupational environment adapted to their physiological and psychological capabilities; in summary, to adapt work to the workers and each worker to his or her job. According to the ILO Convention No. 161/1985 (1) and the 1996 WHO Global Strategy on Occupational Health for All, to protect the worker against sickness, disease and injury arising out of his or her employment, the establishing of occupational health services for all workers is recommended. The Convention as well as the Strategy emphasize the importance of multidisciplinary approach and multisectoral collaboration. It is evident that during the last decades of the 20th century, the concept of occupational medicine and occupational health has been changed. Occupational health services mean services entrusted with essentially preventive functions. Is there still a room for medical services provided by occupational physicians? The dominance of medical professionals seems to disappear in the modern multidisciplinary model of Occupational Health Services.