Occupational health & safety
Health Surveillance (Occupational)
Definition
Health surveillance is the ongoing systematic collection, analysis, interpretation, and dissemination of workers' health data for the purpose of prevention — covering procedures such as medical examinations, biological monitoring, and questionnaires designed to detect and identify any abnormality related to work. Under ILO guidance, it operates within occupational health services established along the lines of Convention No. 161, with strict safeguards for privacy, confidentiality, and professional independence.
References
Overview
What it means
Surveillance is prevention, not diagnosis for its own sake: its results must feed back into controlling workplace hazards — for example, detecting early hearing loss or vibration injury while harm is still reversible. It complements, and must be linked to, surveillance of the working environment itself, and it is subject to ethical limits because health data can be misused for discrimination.
How it is used
Employers run surveillance programmes for workers exposed to noise, vibration, dust, chemicals, or radiation, often as a legal duty; the concept appears in OSH management systems and social audits.
Why it matters
It is the early-warning system that turns occupational medicine from treatment into prevention.