Global Alliance for Occupational Health and Safety

In a nutshell:

  •        A project funded by The Italian Workers Compensation Authority (INAIL, Italy).
  •        The goal of this project is to study the feasibility of a global network (The Global Alliance for Occupational Health and Safety) that supports the production, synthesis, dissemination, implementation, and evaluation of evidence in the field of health and safety at work.
  •        Ultimate goal is to increase value and reduce waste in occupational healthcare and research.
  •        Project duration 2021-2022.
  •        Project leader: Cochrane Work, based at the Department of Public and Occupational Health, Amsterdam UMC (The Netherlands). Contact: Julitta Boschman.

We need better information flow and utilization

The best current evidence must be transferred seamlessly between the communities of people performing primary research, summarizing research into systematic reviews, creating guidelines and decisions aids, and people responsible for implementing and evaluating evidence into occupational healthcare. Currently, on a global level, these players are largely isolated, and information flow and utilization is inefficient and incomplete. It’s time to change this inefficiency and Cochrane Work wants to lead this change in the field of occupational health and safety.

A structure for active, living and sustainable evidence

The goal of the project “Global Alliance for Occupational Health and Safety” is to set up a structure for an active, living and sustainable evidence ecosystem for occupational health and safety. The ultimate goal is that we increase value and reduce waste in occupational healthcare and research. We want to facilitate evidence flow, from its inception to documented improved care through linking the people producing, synthesizing, and implementing evidence into practice in a network. This network will be called the Global Alliance for Occupational Health and Safety (see figure 1 below). A conceptual framework for dynamic healthcare evidence ecosystems was initially developed in 2013 by MAGIC, an international group of collaborating researchers. Cochrane Work aims now to further developed MAGIC's ecosystem concept for application specifically in occupational health and safety.

A network that will benefit all

We will invite stakeholders involved in the health, safety and wellbeing of workers to join the Global Alliance for Occupational Health and Safety, a network in which important stakeholders are united and encouraged to share, discuss and to put a dot on the horizon of occupational health. Stakeholders are:

  •        Professional associations of occupational health or insurance physicians;
  •        Professional associations of other providers of occupational health care, such as ergonomists;
  •        Occupational health services;
  •        Employers’ organizations;
  •        Employee organizations;
  •        Research institutes in the field of occupational health and safety;
  •        University departments having teachers or university lecturers in the field of occupational health and safety;
  •       Grant providers.

The mission of the Global Alliance for Occupational Health and Safety is to build the evidence ecosystem for occupational health (see figure 1 below). Cochrane Work will be the facilitator of the Global Alliance for Occupational Health and Safety and can be one of the evidence synthesizers. Other institutes can pick up this task as well.

Figure 1. The evidence ecosystem for occupational health and safety