Basic occupational health services — their structure , content and objectives

Occupational health services are available only to 10– 15% of the workers of the world. In industrialized countries the coverage varies between 15% and 90%, and in developing countries it ranges between a few percent and 20%. Even where such services are available, their quality and relevance may be low (1–3). The needs for occupational health services are growing continuously, however, and new challenges are continually being set by new developments in the globalization of worklife. To provide a response to such a global challenge, the WHO/ILO/ICOH Joint Effort on the Development of Basic Occupational Health Services (BOHS) was launched (4). A guideline for a model framework has been published jointly by the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Labour Office (ILO), the International Commission for Occupational Health (ICOH), and the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health (FIOH); it provides guidance in the principles, content, models, and resources of BOHS. The ultimate objective of the BOHS initiative is to provide occupational health services for all working people in the world, regardless of the sector of economy, mode of employment, size of the workplace, or geographic location (ie, according to the principle of universal services provision) (5). In this paper, the background for BOHS with respect to policy and public health theory is described, the model infrastructure is elucidated, and the stepwise