Wade R
West J Med. 1982 Dec;137(6):577-80.
Concern for the protection of workers' health is not new to medicine. Physicians in the 1400's raised awareness among colleagues as to the need to prevent the diseases of employment in mines. Society has responded to increasing levels of evidence as to the relationships between disease and certain worksites by making employers accountable for the individual and social costs incurred by poor workplace hygiene. This has occurred by the development of workers' compensation and occupational health and safety regulatory programs. The impact of these efforts has been to significantly reduce occupational disease and safety problems in industry. Increasing resources have also been given to the training of physicians in occupational medicine and research into links between occupations and disease. Increasing pressure to reduce public spending and to deregulate are challenging government's ability to continue research, training, technical information distribution, consultation and regulatory cleanup efforts to improve work conditions and thus reduce the incidence of occupational safety and health problems.
对工人健康保护的关注在医学领域并非新鲜事。15世纪的医生就提高了同行们对预防矿山职业病必要性的认识。随着越来越多关于疾病与某些工作场所之间关系的证据出现，社会通过让雇主对不良工作场所卫生所产生的个人和社会成本负责来做出回应。这是通过制定工人赔偿以及职业健康与安全监管计划实现的。这些努力的影响是显著减少了工业中的职业病和安全问题。越来越多的资源也被投入到职业医学医生的培训以及职业与疾病关联的研究中。削减公共开支和放松管制的压力不断增加，这对政府继续开展研究、培训、技术信息传播、咨询以及监管清理工作以改善工作条件从而降低职业安全与健康问题发生率的能力构成了挑战。
