Life and work, part-1

An ‘exposomic’ view on occupational health

Summary:

In the first of a two-part series, exposure scientist Dr Miranda Loh explains how an understanding of an individual’s occupational and environmental exposures throughout their life contributes to their health overall. This comprehensive approach, which has been labelled ‘exposomic’ by the scientific community, has tremendous potential, especially when considering the emerging technologies available for real-time exposure monitoring.

For many people, work encompasses close to five decades of life. The work environment and its related risk factors have a large impact on a person’s health and quality of life, both while working and in retirement. During the most recent year for which statistics are available in Britain, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) estimated an average of 582,000 workers were injured in the workplace, and 518,000 fell ill due to work-related issues. …

Dr Miranda Loh is head of environmental and public health at the Institute of Occupational Medicine in Edinburgh. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement No 874703.

Author: Loh M

Tags environmental medicine exposure limits

Occupational Health at Work February/March 2021 (vol. 17/5) pp32-35

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