Table 1

Priority listing of the five broad research areas

Broad topic areas of research	Respondents
Broad topic areas of research	All (n=72)	MOH (n=21)	Industry (n=32)
Occupational health problems for specific occupational groups/industries (hazard types, number exposed, extent of injuries and diseases, etc)	2.58^1-150	2.62^1-150	2.50^1-150
	25%^1-151	19%^1-151	25%^1-151
	1^1-152	3^1-152	2^1-152

Investigation of specific occupational health problems (poisoning, noise induced hearing loss, occupational asthma, etc)	2.63^1-150	2.28^1-150	2.75^1-150
	18%^1-151	24%^1-151	19%^1-151
	2^1-152	2^1-152	3^1-152

Incidence and prevalence of work related diseases (development of reporting systems, diagnostic criteria, etc)	2.72^1-150	2.05^1-150	3.28^1-150
	34%^1-151	52%^1-151	22%^1-151
	3^1-152	1^1-152	4^1-152

Health problems associated with industrial development (air quality, accidents, haze, etc)	3.09^1-150	3.95^1-150	2.46^1-150
	18%^1-151	5%^1-151	28%^1-151
	4^1-152	4^1-152	1^1-152

Evaluation of occupational health services	4.04^1-150	4.09^1-150	5.65^1-150
	4%^1-151	5%^1-151	6%^1-151
	5^1-152	5^1-152	5^1-152

Score range 1–5: a mean score of 1 indicates the highest priority; a mean score of 5 indicates the lowest priority.
↵1-150 Mean ranking score for each topic.
↵1-151 Percentage of participants ranking the topic as top priority (score of 1).
↵1-152 Overall rank order for each respondent group using the mean ranking scores.
MOH=Ministry of Health; n=number of respondents which includes MOH (21), industry (32), and 19 others from universities and other government departments.