The official launch saw the participation of more than 100 private and public administration representatives
On 19 July 2022 the project OH partner NIOHP organized the official project launch together with the DGUV. More than 20 representatives of both the central as well as local NIOHP offices, labor administration officials of the EU, project participants of the DGUV, and 80 representatives from 20 participating enterprises attended the partly live, partly virtual event.
Zhang Meibian, Deputy Director of the NIOHP, Mathias Fritz, representative of the Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, Unit C2 – Health and safety at work of the European Union Commission, and a representative of the Hunan Provincial Occupational Disease Control Institute initiated the two-day event with introductory speeches. These were followed by project introductions by Wang Yi, the Programme Manager, as well as Dr. Kristina Meier, Senior Statistician, of the DGUV. Dr. Meier presented the overall goals of the pilot and provided details on the proposed methodology.
The attendants learned from to Dr. Meier that the methodology involved a combination of the best practices from China and the EU by employing aspects of the EU Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) with its ad hoc modules and combining it with data collection methods developed by Chinese medical experts. One of the major advantages of the methodology is the fact that its implementation can be entirely integrated into the existing medical health examinations according to law and hence will not replace them in any way. Instead, the new methodology will expand the institution’s current focus beyond the six exposure groups as covered by the CDC occupational health monitoring database by including mental health hazards as well as hazards causing musculoskeletal disorders. The new information gathered with this methodology will create a strong data base for developing preventive measures.
The event concluded on the second day with a enumerator training in the facilities of SAIC Volkswagen Changsha, the efficacy of which was assessed by a test after the training with great results, proving the commitment and deep understanding of the new methodology by the OH partner NIOHP.
