RECENT TRENDS OF OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND OCCUPATIONAL DISEASE IN JAPAN

Recent problems and prospects of occupational health in Japan.

Recent advances: occupational disease.

An occupational disease may be defined simply as one that is caused, or made worse, by exposure at work. While epidemiological studies of populations can determine whether disease is attributable to a particular type or level of exposure, for an individual patient this is less clear. Judgments about the patterns of exposure likely to be causal may be made in medicolegal cases or claims for comp...

[Certified occupational physician system of Japan Society for Occupational Health].

Certified Occupational Physician System (COPS) of Japan Society for Occupational Health has been in existence for 21 years, since 1992. UOEH has supported this system as a secretary general. In this report, we review the 2012 revision of COPS. With the new title of Certified Associate Occupational Physician (CAOP), this revision was established to produce well-educated and experienced occupatio...

Occupational asthma in Japan

Research into occupational asthma (OA) in Japan has been led by the Japanese Society of Occupational and Environmental Allergy. The first report about allergic OA identified konjac asthma. After that, many kinds of OA have been reported. Cases of some types of OA, such as konjac asthma and sea squirt asthma, have been dramatically reduced by the efforts of medical personnel. Recently, with the ...

The future of occupational and general health in Japan

In the 21st century, a rapidly increasing elderly and decreasing younger generation is the most serious socioeconomic problem in Japan, resulting in a severe burden on the working population bearing medical care expenses for the whole population. Increase in life expectancy for both males and females has reached its peak in the world since the 1980s. At present, important diseases affecting adu...