Knowledge Infrastructure Needed for Occupational Healtha

Abstract

Expertise on work and health topics is the foundation for the added value of occupational health (OH) professionals to the health of the working population. Professionals should therefore practice in accordance with high quality standards and latest evidence. As adequate knowledge management and a supportive knowledge infrastructure is needed, OH professionals can discuss opportunities to strengthen both. Occupational health services ought to offer ICT facilities, stimulate organizational conditions and human resource development to implement evidence-based practice. On national level a portal including a virtual library, tailor-made for occupational health, providing access to high quality websites, abstracts and full text articles and books, is a backbone for further developments. Expert groups on various topics can function as

Occupational physicians’ perceived value of evidence-based medicine intervention in enhancing their professional performance

“…After the intervention, access to full-text articles will certainly disappear. Occupational physicians need a well-functioning knowledge infrastructure to access the evidence they need for practicing evidence-based medicine (24,39).…”

Enhancing evidence-based advice of occupational health physicians

“…Occupational health physicians and the management of occupational health services should invest in learning evidence-basedmedicine practice and feel obliged to do real searches of good quality. For this purpose, repeated sessions with PubMed tutorials can be helpful, and more information on available evidence-based sources and support by a good knowledge infrastructure is essential (26).…”

Can Workers Answer Their Questions about Occupational Safety and Health: Challenges and Solutions

“…Theoretically, workers can find their information in various facilities, sources and services provided by their regional, national or international OSH knowledge infrastructure 14,36) . The sources and facilities belonging to this infrastructure offer workers easy access to the available high-quality information through the following: 1) information or knowledge products, such as fact sheets or practice guidelines provided by (virtual) libraries or highquality websites, 2) education and training provided by specialized OSH experts or by the workers' own company and 3) professional advice from occupational physicians or other occupational safety and health professionals 14,36,37) . There is some evidence that the internet and company OSH professionals are workers' most common sources of information 2,8,13,15) .…”

“…To answer questions and make improvements in practice, workers seek and apply information or advice from OSH professionals, from education and training opportunities and from such sources as informational websites, fact sheets, books or practice guidelines 2,[13][14][15] . Several studies suggest that the information-seeking behaviour of workers, and the available information sources, frequently fail to produce answers to workers' OSH questions [1][2][3][4]15) .…”