New EU campaign for healthy workplaces

The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA). has launched a new Healthy Workplaces Campaign. The European Men's Health Forum (EMHF) is one of the campaign's first nine official backers.

The EU-OSHA estimate that every three-and-a-half minutes somebody in the EU dies from work-related causes and that every four-and-a-half seconds an EU worker is involved in an accident that forces them to stay at home for at least three working days.

This figure is based on combining statiscts from Eurostat shwoing that every year 5,720 people die in the European Union as a consequence of work-related accidents with the International Labour Organisation estimate that an additional 159,500 workers in the EU die every year from occupational diseases.

The campaign - which kicked off with a Safety at Work week this month - focuses on the evaluation of health and safety risks and aims at reducing work-related accidents and illnesses.

'It is estimated that every three-and-a-half minutes somebody in the EU dies from work-related causes,' said EMHF director Erick Savoye. 'Most of these will be men. That's why it's so important that the EMHF is part of the first wave of official partners for this campaign. And why it is so important that the camapign succeeds.'

EMHF - and MHF - president Ian Banks added: 'This campaign rightfully recognises the value of the workplace for communicating safety and health matters to all employees, and particularly to men who delay seeking professional opinion.'

The first nine partner organisations are: Business Europe, the CEOC (Confederation of Inspection and Certification Organisations), the ESF (European Safety Federation), ETPIS (European Technology Platform on Industrial Safety), the ETUC (European Trade Union Confederation), EuroCOP (European Confederation of Police), Ideal Standard International, Johnson & Johnson and the EMHF.

The Healthy Workplaces campaign on Risk Assessment runs over two years (2008/2009) and is backed by the EU Presidencies, the European Parliament, the European Commission and the European social partners. With the help of its network of national focal points in the 27 EU member states and accession countries, EU-OSHA will organise hundreds of events and activities throughout the campaign.