PARTICIPATION AS A MEANS OF PROMOTING OCCUPATIONAL-HEALTH

In modern industry, the introduction of new technology and rapidly changing marketing and production strategies also have an influence on the job content and the need for flexibility and worker training. These new industrial tendencies may create new occupational risks but also open up new possibilities to improve health and safety at work. Participatory ergonomics is proposed as a flexible means for achieving occupational health goals in changing productional situations. The aim of this overview is, in the light of a few examples, to give an idea of how participatory ergonomics could be used as a means of preventing occupational diseases, and more generally, promoting occupational health. Relevance to industry Participation is one means to deal with uncertainty in a rapidly changing business environment. Participatory approaches permit to affect causal mechanisms of occupational accidents and diseases, particularly in situations where the number of risk factors is too varied to be controlled by other methods.