This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/ 3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Our erudite colleague, in his Letter to the Editor, has made a valiant effort to demonstrat...

Epidemiology is the study of the distribution, determinants and outcome of disease. In this article, the recently acquired knowledge of the epidemiology of occupational asthma is described, as well as current areas of controversy. Incidence figures obtained from field studies in high-risk workplaces, medicolegal statistics and sentinel programmes indicate that approximately 10% of adult-onset a...

This article is a discussion of occupational cancer in Italy. The introduction provides the necessary context of Italian industrialization and occupational health regulation. This is followed by a review of Italian epidemiologic studies of occupational cancer risks considered in terms of relative measures of risk and attributable risk of carcinogenic agents or exposure circumstances. We attempt...

Rhinitis is a chronic inflammatory disease of the upper respiratory tract, characterized by a high prevalence and a complex pathogenesis. Work-related rhinitis (WRR) can be divided into occupational rhinitis (OR) and work-exacerbated rhinitis (WER). It is not only considered as a disease entity but also in the context of medical certification as the allergic disease associated with occupational...

In the 1930s in Britain, industrial medicine was a clinical discipline, the main purposes of which were to diagnose disability in applicants for work, to identify industrial disease in the dangerous trades, and to provide first aid treatment for those injured or taken sick in the workplace. Following rapid developments in epidemiology and occupational hygiene and with more emphasis on "group he...

1 Department of Preventive Medicine and Community Health, University of Occupational and Environmental Health, Kitakyushu, Fukuoka, Japan. 2 Public Health, Department of Social and Environmental Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan. 3 Department of Preventive Medicine/Biostatistics and Medical Decision Making, Field of Social Life Science, Program in Health and ...

Research on occupational cancer epidemiology has been an important area of occupational health in Europe since the early studies were conducted in the United Kingdom in the 1950s and 1960s. During the last decade, occupational cancer research in Europe has gained an international dimension and become increasingly interdisciplinary in nature. At present, occupational exposures might be responsib...

In 1998, a large scale prospective cohort study of prolonged fatigue in the working population was started in the Netherlands. The ultimate goal of this Maastricht Cohort Study was to identify risk factors involved in the aetiology and natural course of prolonged fatigue in the working population and to develop preventive measures and treatments that can be used in occupational health settings....

is generally very good; the problem is with what is missing. This means that while this will serve well as a textbook of occupational health, it may need to be supplemented from other sources in order to serve as a textbook of global occupational health.

Environmental Health publishes manuscripts on all aspects of environmental and occupational medicine and related studies in toxicology and epidemiology. The journal is aimed at scientists and practitioners in all areas of environmental science where human health and well-being are involved, either directly or indirectly. Environmental Health is a public health journal serving the public health ...