News

The Canadian "Centre d'expertise et de référence en santé publique-INSPQ" has recently published (27/03/2020) in its website a document with preventive measures and recommendations for pregnant and breastfeeding women still at work.. This document will be periodically updated as the other documents for health professionals on COVID19 .

In this webinar, the speakers will review the NIOSH/CDC guidance followed by a discussion of studies on and systems for the decontamination of N95s. The presentations will be followed by live, moderated Q&A.

The Webinar will be recorded. The recording and slides will be emailed to all registrants following the presentation.

Cochrane Work has identified and made available a special overview to the most relevant reviews for employers and those working at home due the 2019 Coronavirus outbreak. This overview includes reviews that evaluate the effects of interventions on the following topics:

Staying active, Optimization of the work environment, Prevention of eye problems due to computer use, Actions for pain of the lower back, neck, shoulders, arms.

The outbreak of COVID-19 may be very stressful for people. In China, the level of stress gathered via questionnaire to 52,730 people showed that 35% and 5.14% suffered from mild and severe stress respectively.  On February the Lancet published a rapid review of the evidence of the impact of quarantine. It's imperative to look after the mental health of the population. So, a lot of organizations has made available guidance for managing and  mitigating stress, anxiety and stress. There you have some examples:

- World Health Organization guideline and mental health tips

- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Managing anxiety and stress

- Mental Health Foundation Looking after your mental health

- Health and safety executive (Ireland) Minding your mental health 

- Confederación salud mental (España) Autocuidado, rutinas y ejercicio

- Psycom, ressources pour prendre soin de notres santé mentale

The European Health and Safety at Work Agency (EU-OSHA) has published in its OSH-Wiki a guidance designed to assist employers and businesses in providing advice to staff in non-healthcare settings on coronavirus. It includes information about the virus and the disease, how to help prevent spread of COVID-19, how to do with a suspected or confirmed case at the workplace, advice on travels and meetings, and where to get reliable information about this issue. You can also get more links and practical information at EU-OSHA new section "Coronavirus disease outbreak (COVID-19) and occupational health and safety".

ENWHP is one of the fourteen partners involved in the H-WORK project coordinated by Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna (Italy). This project, that has received funding from European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and innovation program, has the purpose of promoting effective interventions on mental health at work by designing, implementing and validating multilevel assessment and intervention toolkits, evaluating individual and organizational outcomes of the adopted measures and providing further innovative products and services. The Kick of Meeting took place in Bologna on 16^th and 17^th January in the presence of 45 representatives of the different partners. It was a great opportunity to meet, work on team building, collect ideas and plan future work.

Be attentive to @ENWHP twitter account and Newsletter, we will come soon with more information.

The Council adopted in June a Directive on work-life balance for parents and carers which aims to increase the participation of women in the labour market and the take-up of family-related leave and flexible working arrangements. This Directive is in force since 2 August 2019 and EU Member states shall bring into force the laws, regulations and administrative provisions necessary to comply with it by 2 August 2022. This Directive also repeals the Council Directive 2010/18/EU with effect of 2 August 2022.

A new Convention and accompanying Recommendation to combat violence and harassment in the world of work have been adopted by the International Labour Conference  (ILC). The new international labour standard aims to protect workers and employees, irrespective of their contractual status, and includes persons in training, interns and apprentices, workers whose employment has been terminated, volunteers, job seekers and job applicants. It recognizes that “individuals exercising the authority, duties or responsibilities of an employer” can also be subjected to violence and harassment. The Convention will enter into force 12 months after two member States have ratified it. The Recommendation, which is not legally binding, provides guidelines on how the Convention could be applied. 

To know more about the significance of this new Convention read Shauna Olney, Chief, Gender, Equality and Diversity Branch, ILO post.

The Hospital Bambino Gesù - Roma, in collaboration with the ENWHP and other scientific committees, organized in Bressanone in the days 17-21 - June 2019 a Summer School to discuss on wellbeing in the workplace. It is well known that individual and occupational well-being has direct and indirect business effects on various economic and non-economic factors, such as absenteeism, high turnover, transfer requests, low levels of motivation, lack of trust and commitment, increase in complaints, suitability with limitations, occupational diseases and labour law disputes. Recent changes in the world of work (ageing of the work force, increase in work rhythms and loads, difficult balance between work and home commitments, attention to the work climate, etc.), together with the incidence of chronic-degenerative diseases (cardiovascular, musculoskeletal and oncological diseases), require the adoption of health promotion programmes and an ever-increasing attention to work wellbeing, as also provided for in Legislative Decree 81/08, articles 25 and 28. The sessions illustrated some good practices and national and international experiences related to occupational well-being understood as a qualifying managerial element within the company of the activities related to Prevention in the workplace (Disability Management, Health Promotion, Personalized Prevention and Workplace Well-being).

The Research Division has been very active since the beginning of the year, becoming involved on 4 proposals to the European Commission programmes.  Two of these have been submitted to the H2020 call for better health and care, economic growth and sustainable health systems and are concerned with developing and testing tools to address mental health issues in the workplace.  These proposals are led by organisations from Spain and from Italy and the ENWHP is a partner in both proposals.

The other 2 proposals have been submitted to the Erasmus Plus programme, which is the Commission’s main programme for developing vocational training programmes.  The first is concerned with developing training in WHP to a high level, something which is lacking in most EU countries, while the second is looking to develop training in the area of promoting physical exercise in the workplace. You can find out more about these 2 proposals in the Training Division part of the website.

Evaluation of proposals such as these generally takes 3 months or so – we expect to hear the outcomes of this process in the early summer.