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Nearly half of patients diagnosed with cancer are in the middle of their traditional working age. The return to work after cancer entails challenges because of the cancer or treatments and associated with the workplace. The study aimed at providing more insight into the occupational outcomes encountered by workers with cancer and to provide interventions, programs, and practices to support their return to work.

Starting from March 2020 until December 2021, different phases of Covid-19 pandemic have been identified in Italy, with several containing/lifting measures progressively enforced by the National government. In the present study, we investigate the change in occupational risk during the subsequent pandemic phases and we propose an estimate of the incidence of the cases by economic sector, based on the analysis of insurance claims for compensation for Covid-19.

On the basis of its role for the development of occupational health research, information, good practices, the International Commission on Occupational Health (ICOH) launched the present survey to collect information on public health and prevention policies put in place by the governments of the countries in the world to contain the pandemic.

The growing development of nanomaterials (NMs) and advanced materials ask for a responsible approach to anticipate occupational health and safety (OSH) risks. After the introduction of the EC Directive 2019/1832 that rules the personal protective equipment use in the activities in which NMs exposure risk has been recognized, the need arises to support enterprises in the risk analysis process. Since knowledge gaps still remain about health effects and as long as occupational exposure limits will not be enforced by law, Prevention-through-Design (PtD) approach has been proposed to mitigate risks, taking into account OSH aspects starting from the design stages of NMs manufacturing processes. In the present study, different case studies of graphene based NMs production have been analysed. The PtD methodology has been applied by integration of the ISO/TS 12901-2:2014 Control Banding and the EN 17058 multi-metric and tiered strategy for exposure measurement. Mean and standard deviation background values of real-time particle number concentration (PNC) have been measured in order to calculate the significant levels (i.e. the PNC values beyond which NMs emission may be supposed). Evidences obtained by off-line electron microscopy techniques on airborne NMs sampled in the workplace allowed the proof that workers’ exposure can occur during graphene powders handling and cleaning/maintenance phases. Based on the data analysis, primary risk management measures are recommended for each production phase and specific training approaches have been identified addressed to the different OSH players, according to the PEROSH European guidance.

The aim of this study is to illustrate the historical role of the International Commission on Occupational Health (ICOH) congresses as an arena where national and international occupational medicine can dialogue and as the first example of scientific transferability of the research and prevention results that have had such an impact on global public health.

IntroductionThe SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is an impacting challenge for occupational health. Epidemiological surveillance of COVID-19 includes systematic tracking and reporting of the total cases and deaths, but suitable experiences of surveillance systems for identifying the occupational risk factors involved in the COVID-19 pandemic are still missing, despite the interest for occupational safety and health.MethodsA methodological approach has been implemented in Italy to estimate the occupational risk of infection, classifying each economic sector as at low, medium-low, medium-high and high risk, based on three parameters: exposure probability, proximity index and aggregation factor. Furthermore, during the epidemic emergency, the Italian Workers’ Compensation Authority introduced the notation of COVID-19 work-related infection as an occupational injury and collected compensation claims of workers from the entire national territory.ResultsAccording to compensation claims applications, COVID-19 infection in Italy has been acquired at the workplace in a substantial portion of the total cases (19.4%). The distribution of the economic sectors involved is coherent with the activities classified at risk in the lockdown period. The economic sectors mostly involved were human health and social work activities, but occupational compensation claims also include cases in meat and poultry processing plants workers, store clerks, postal workers, pharmacists and cleaning workers.ConclusionsThere is a need to go towards an occupational surveillance system for COVID-19 cases, including an individual anamnestic analysis of the circumstances in which the infection is acquired, for the prevention of occupational infectious risk, supporting insurance system effectiveness and managing vaccination policies.