Occupational medicine and toxicology

This editorial is to announce the Journal of Occupational Medicine and Toxicology, a new Open Access, peer-reviewed, online journal published by BioMed Central. Occupational medicine and toxicology belong to the most wide ranging disciplines of all medical specialties. The field is devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, management and scientific analysis of diseases from the fields of occupational and environmental medicine and toxicology. It also covers the promotion of occupational and environmental health. The complexity of modern industrial processes has dramatically changed over the past years and today's areas include effects of atmospheric pollution, carcinogenesis, biological monitoring, ergonomics, epidemiology, product safety and health promotion. We hope that the launch of the Journal of Occupational Medicine and Toxicology will aid in the advance of these important areas of research bringing together multi-disciplinary research findings. Editorial The Journal of Occupational Medicine and Toxicology is an Open Access, online journal that publishes research articles, short reports and reviews related to the field of occupational/environmental medicine and toxicology. The first published articles focus on respiratory medicine and infectious diseases [1-5]. The field of research Occupational medicine and toxicology belongs to the most wide ranging disciplines of all medical specialties. The field is devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, management and scientific analysis of occupational diseases, injuries and disability. It also covers the promotion of health of workers, their families, and communities. In the era of heavy industries occupational medicine was known as "industrial medicine" with a focus on acute medical care for injured employees. The complexity of modern industrial processes changed the field and today's areas covered by occupational medicine include effects of atmospheric pollution, carcinogenesis, biological monitoring, ergonomics, epidemiology, product safety and health promotion. Why the journal is needed The field of occupational medicine and toxicology is not static and the demand for studies addressing the large variety of current issues continues to grow. In view of this demand and the fact that numerous occupational medicine and toxicology studies are published by journals of related fields such as pulmonary medicine, oncology or allergy, there is a need for a new online journal that also aims to improve communication between basic and clinical science. These features will be combined by an "Open Access model " and a rapid publication process without major space limitations. Published: 02 February 2006 Journal of Occupational Medicine and Toxicology 2006, 1:1 doi:10.1186/1745-6673-1-1 Received: 18 March 2005 Accepted: 02 February 2006 This article is available from: http://www.occup-med.com/content/1/1/1 © 2006 Groneberg and Fischer; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.