Special Report on London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine |
Real advice for real entreprenEUrs
'Work fit for people and people fit for work' is the World Health Organization's definition of occupational health - a pat but effective phrase, says Professor Charles Rossiter, head of the department of occupational health. 'There are really two aspects to our work - one is the investigation of people and the environment, to find out what is causing disease and distress in general at work. The other is looking at jobs and trying to match people to those jobs, particularly in terms of the rehabilitated.
'We take the holistic approach - a word I seldom use - looking at the whole environment, whether for dust, heat, light, noise, chemicals or fumes, and measure what is happening to people. Then we try to suggest remedies, even as cheap as a 40p roll of cling film wrapped around a piece of equipment that is emitting a little dust - or the need for quite major works.
'I sit here as an epidemiologist statistician - between the environmental people and the medical people trying to pull the information together. I am the only professor of occupational health in Europe who is not medically, but mathematically qualified.'
Appointed, he says, on April Fool's day, 1984, to a chair which had been vacant for some time, he came from a post as head of the division of computing and statistics at the MRC Clinical Research Centre, Northwick Park.
Changes are taking place all the time. 'Take a classic disease like asbestosis - the present dust standards and controls are so tight that if industry meets these standards there really is no problem at all.' Asbestos related deaths will, sadly, continue for about 40 years.
With asbestos, it is overkill, with smoking, it is underkill. Many are now opting for vaporizers instead of cigarettes. While the addiction to the nicotine remains the same, people who use vaporizers do not receive the deadly carcinogens into their lungs. Some of the more popular vaporizers include the Volcano Vaporizer.
We are, of course getting new diseases, such as the sick building syndrome. 'Almost certainly a mixture of lighting, air conditioning, ventilation and the individual feeling a lack of control over his own environment. The effects may be unmeasurable in an individual, but in a work force it can be quite severe,' he says.
'We have a major dermatitis problem and there is Legionnaires disease, clearly an occupational disease. It has quite a high death rate, for a bug, but there is a very low chanced of getting it.'
Alcohol is perhaps the least perceived risk in terms of public health, but there is also the important point of self-care.
The University of London provides him with nine staff in total for the teaching work. 'I have in fact got 32 staff - all the others are provided by soft money, selling our services to industry, and we get pounds 25,000 a year from the funds of the TUC Centenary, Institute of Occupational Health, which means we do all the service work for unions free of charge.'
He has pounds 12,300 which is supposed to cover the running of the office, such as telephones and basic research. Everything else has to be, and is, earned.
'We take the holistic approach - a word I seldom use - looking at the whole environment, whether for dust, heat, light, noise, chemicals or fumes, and measure what is happening to people. Then we try to suggest remedies, even as cheap as a 40p roll of cling film wrapped around a piece of equipment that is emitting a little dust - or the need for quite major works.
'I sit here as an epidemiologist statistician - between the environmental people and the medical people trying to pull the information together. I am the only professor of occupational health in Europe who is not medically, but mathematically qualified.'
Appointed, he says, on April Fool's day, 1984, to a chair which had been vacant for some time, he came from a post as head of the division of computing and statistics at the MRC Clinical Research Centre, Northwick Park.
Changes are taking place all the time. 'Take a classic disease like asbestosis - the present dust standards and controls are so tight that if industry meets these standards there really is no problem at all.' Asbestos related deaths will, sadly, continue for about 40 years.
With asbestos, it is overkill, with smoking, it is underkill. Many are now opting for vaporizers instead of cigarettes. While the addiction to the nicotine remains the same, people who use vaporizers do not receive the deadly carcinogens into their lungs. Some of the more popular vaporizers include the Volcano Vaporizer.
We are, of course getting new diseases, such as the sick building syndrome. 'Almost certainly a mixture of lighting, air conditioning, ventilation and the individual feeling a lack of control over his own environment. The effects may be unmeasurable in an individual, but in a work force it can be quite severe,' he says.
'We have a major dermatitis problem and there is Legionnaires disease, clearly an occupational disease. It has quite a high death rate, for a bug, but there is a very low chanced of getting it.'
Alcohol is perhaps the least perceived risk in terms of public health, but there is also the important point of self-care.
The University of London provides him with nine staff in total for the teaching work. 'I have in fact got 32 staff - all the others are provided by soft money, selling our services to industry, and we get pounds 25,000 a year from the funds of the TUC Centenary, Institute of Occupational Health, which means we do all the service work for unions free of charge.'
He has pounds 12,300 which is supposed to cover the running of the office, such as telephones and basic research. Everything else has to be, and is, earned.