Promotion of occupational health and safety research: foundation of a new independent administrative institution in Japan.

Industrial Health (NIIH) and the National Institute of Industrial Safety (NIIS) were amalgamated into a single, comprehensive research facility legislated as the Japan National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (JNIOSH), a new independent administrative government institution. From its inception as the Silicosis Laboratory, an attached office of the Industrial Health Division, Japan Ministry of Labour, in 1949, the NIIH has since played a leading role in industrial health research, both domestically and internationally. Similarly, the NIIS, which was first established as the Research Institute of Industrial Safety by the Ministry of Welfare in1942, has pursued a wide variety of research topics in the field of industrial safety as a governmental institution within the Ministry of Labour throughout the latter half of last century, since 1947. In 1963, our journal: INDUSTRIAL HEALTH, began publishing peer-reviewed original research papers in the field of industrial hygiene and occupational health. This quarterly journal was open to all international contributors, and by the year 2000 had published a total of 992 papers, of which 755 were original articles, 220 short communications, and 17 in-depth review articles1). During its history, INDUSTRIAL HEALTH was instrumental in the development of advanced occupational health knowledge from a global perspective, especially in Asia. Another significant activity to promote occupational health research in Japan has been made by the National Conference on Promotion of Occupational Health Research Priorities. This national conference was organized by the NIIH in 2001 and has been supported exclusively by the Japan Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. The activity of the conference is based on the National Occupational Health Research Agenda (NOHRA), with three key research areas, 18 research priorities and eight implementation measures, proposed in the previous national conference: Conference on Occupational Health Research Strategies in the 21st Century organized by the Japan Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare from 1998 through to 2001 (Fig. 1, Tables 1, 2)2–4). So far, through a four-year extensive review of literature and a questionnaire survey to all members of three major academic societies on occupational health in Japan, the Conference on Promotion of Occupational Health Research Priorities revealed that the following four research priorities were most intensively investigated in terms of both the number of original papers published in the past five years and the number of research workers directly involved (Table 1, Fig. 2)4): Work stress and mental health, Quality of working life and health promotion, Toxicity assessment of chemicals, and Risk assessment and health effect index (Research priorities 3, 17, 7 & 12, respectively). In contrast, two research priorities, i.e. Industrial Health 2006, 44, 215–217