Abstract

One of the most important tasks of the occupational physician in Belgium is the prevention of primary and secondary health damage related to the job.

An occupational disease (OD) is a disease that at least partially is caused by risk factors at work or in which the evolution is caused by risk factors in the working environment.

In different countries, the scientific literature about OD and the several registration systems in occupational health generates data about those risk factors responsible for the development of OD.

That data and the legislative framework can lead to preventive measures that can prevent OD, a task for the occupational physician.

In Belgium, the available data about OD, coming from occupational health context, appear to be rare. So to find out more about the incidence and the diagnosis of OD, we will use other existing systems of surveillance in Belgium.

We’ll use two sentinel surveillance systems in primary care and one general health care surveillance system. With the use of specific questionnaires about the chosen OD, we search for the risk factors recorded by the attending physicians.

This poster presents you how we used the existing methods in the context of occupational health and explains how the OD and the search for the risk factors are questioned in the general health care surveillance systems.

Dr Bieke Claesen, PhD student University of Antwerp, Occupational Physician at IDEWE.

Prof Dr A De Schryver, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Epidemiology and Social Medicine (ESOC) University of Antwerp.