Työterveyslaitos (Finnish Institute of Occupational Health)

Mission and strategic goals

The mission of the Institute is to promote occupational health and safety as part of good living.

Strategic goals of the Institute are Safe and meaningful work, Supportive organizations, Effective occupational health services and Flourishing workers. By fulfilling these goals, the Institute increases participation in work life at all stages of a person’s career.

Operation

Organizationally the Institute is divided to three areas of activity which are: Influence through knowledge, Creating solutions and Client services. Influence through knowledge area is further divided to strategic communication, publishing and library services and surveillance and reviews. The area gathers and assesses research data on the quality of work life, on the connections between working conditions and well-being and on the future of work life. It creates an impact through different channels of communication, building knowledge base concerning work and well-being and providing specialist support for society’s decision-makers and legislators. Creating solutions area is further divided to nine themes, which are:

• Work participation and sustainable careers
• Well-being solutions for the workplace
• Effective occupational health services
• Work life and the future
• User-centric indoor environments
• Brain at work
• Nanosafety research centre
• Social capital, health and well-being at work
• Disability prevention centre

Creating solutions -area carries out high-level research that meets the demands of work life. It converts the results of scientific research into innovative cost-effective solutions. The nine above-mentioned themes have been chosen to address the current challenges facing work life and to predict future changes.

Client Services area is divided to five service centres, which are:

• Occupational well-being development
• Occupational medicine centre
• Work environment development
• Organizational development

FIOH offers clients chargeable specialist advisory services, training, and information packages with which to improve the well-being of personnel at workplaces, increase the long run productivity of operations and fulfil the statutory obligations concerning health and safety. Through the Regional Offices, the services of FIOH are available throughout Finland.

In addition to general solutions, the FIOH offers tools and special solutions for small businesses and sectors of activity in which well-being at work is a challenge. Qualifications and complementary training in OHS is one of the central tasks of the FIOH. The FIOH trains specialists in occupational medicine, occupational health nurses, and other OHS professionals and specialists. The FIOH offers services in the most demanding level of occupational disease diagnostics as well as in work ability and functional capacity assessments.

International collaboration

FIOH has participated in several EU-projects of various EU-programmes (total around 200 projects of different sizes). In addition, the FIOH specialists contribute to various EU advisory bodies and standardization groups.

FIOH is an active member of the Bilbao Agency Topic Centres. The Institute has coordinated several Topic Centres.

The Institute produces annually about 400–500 international research reports majority of which are peer reviewed. FIOH is a member of the group of European institutes in occupational health and safety (PEROSH) and works in close collaboration with most of the EU research centres active in OH&S.

The Institute acts as a specialist institute of the World Health Organization and the International Labour Office in the field of occupational health.

External Links

FIOH