Occupational hygiene education and status: global trends and a global future.

Alice Hamilton is considered as the mother of ‘occupational hygiene’ (at least in the USA) since she introduced at Harvard University the bases of this science, which detects, evaluates and controls hazards arising in and from the workplace (Rose, 2003). After that time (the forties) the discipline, called Industrial Hygiene, evolved and developed very well up to the late nineties. What are the prospects as we settle into the 21st Century? Relevant milestones of the international development of the discipline are the founding in 1987 of the International Occupational Hygiene Association (IOHA) (http://www.ioha.net) and the support of the International Labor Organization (ILO) and of the World Health Organization (WHO) through publications promoting Occupational Hygiene (OH) (ILO, 1981; WHO, 1988). In 1992, the WHO published a booklet entitled ‘Occupational Hygiene in Europe—The Development of the Profession’ (WHO, 1992), which described the specificity of this discipline, its utility and the basic curriculum for its education and training. This was mainly based on American and British experience. In some countries (for instance in Switzerland), this publication boosted the development of OH, its official recognition and its teaching at a postgraduate level (University of Lausanne, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, 2006). A few years later, a survey of the certification schemes related to this field was carried out by Burdorf (1995) for the IOHA, which confirmed that the profession was well recognized and considered in different countries. In the USA, theUSNews&World Report predicted in 1991 that OH would become one of the ‘top 20 professions’ in this country (Burton, 2004). This prediction unfortunately has not been confirmed, and the present situation is not as promising, even in countries with a long-term tradition in this field. A comprehensive survey on the situation of OH and its education and training throughout the world has not been carried out, so it is not possible to give a clear and unbiased picture of this problem. However an informal collection of information from a network of teachers and colleagues in this field from several countries has been carried out as well as a survey including every member of the IOHA Board of Directors, completed by a literature search. OH education and training reflects the need and perception of our society for this field. This is why more emphasis has been given here to the recognition of OH in the world rather than to the specific educational and training programs offered in different countries. I aim here to present a synthesis of the information collected about the situation and the trends of OH in different countries throughout the world as well as to discuss a few ideas and perspectives for the future of this profession.