Regulating Health and Safety Management in the European Union. A ...

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the Joint Programme for Working Life Research in. Europe. It will be ... The author claims to provide practical instruction on ... She then goes on to discuss how to.
412 OCCUPATIONAL MEDICINE DOI: 10.1093/occmed/kqg081

DOI: 10.1093/occmed/kqg098

Regulating Health and Safety Management in the European Union. A Study of the Dynamics of Change. Edited by David Walters. Published by Presses Interuniversitaires Européenes, 2002. ISBN 90-5201-998-3. Price: £19.00.

Scientific Papers and Presentations. By Martha Davis. Published by Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-206370-8.

This is a heavyweight paperback, comprising 343 pages, 140 000 words and a bibliography of 300 references, being no. 35 in the Series ‘Work & Society’ by SALTSA— the Joint Programme for Working Life Research in Europe. It will be of interest to those occupational health and safety practitioners with a pan-European role. The authors have studied the transposition of the European Union (EU) Health and Safety Framework Directive and the daughter directives into the national legislation of the member states. Separate chapters detail the strategies and themes of transposition in Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Sweden and the UK. These seven countries represent a variety of regulatory models that have influenced the degree and sequence of transposition of the directives. The EU shift from prescriptive to process regulation in the 1990s sought the compliance of duty holders to achieve the target health and safety outcomes. The stimulus of the Framework Directive has prompted some convergence in national provisions. However, health and safety regulation systems continue to retain many features reflecting their intrinsic national concerns. Complex national social and economic policy issues have caused wide differences in implementation and operational outcomes. Thus, there has been limited success in achieving European harmonization in health and safety management. As a consequence of balancing of the tensions between social protection and economic liberalization, health and safety management has been subsumed into measures to protect workers’ rights as EU economic integration has developed. The authors consider that further robust evaluation and caution is warranted in extending this approach to prevent erosion of the quality of the working environment. The book is a hard read, but provides a wealth of reference material and understanding for those working in the EU.

The author is not a doctor and is not a medical scientist, but rather is an academic who teaches in a college of agriculture, food and life sciences. Despite the title, the book is far more wide ranging than it might at first appear. The author emphasizes that good communication is as important in the process of developing science as the actual content of the scientific data, the theories and any case reports that you may wish to share with your colleagues. I expected a heavy book, but was surprised at the lightness of style that made the content more digestible. The author claims to provide practical instruction on writing first drafts, reviewing and revising work, presenting data in tables and figures, and above all discusses how to relate to your audience and how to adhere to principles of style and communication. The author is American, and without question the book has an American feel to it. Sometimes in works of this kind this can be a drawback, but I found that the principles of communication were so clearly and succinctly put, and the style of writing so good, that this was irrelevant. The book is well laid out. First, the author provokes thought about what should be done before starting a piece of scientific work. She then covers how to plan and conduct a review of scientific literature, and how to work through a proposal. She then goes on to discuss how to produce a graduate thesis and to discuss publishing in scientific journals. She spends a good deal of the book discussing communication method and style. Once a piece of work has been completed, there may need to be a presentation, and this too is discussed comprehensively, and with good advice and information. Other forms of communication are discussed, including group work with lay as well as scientific audiences, and there is also an interesting section on ethics. Overall, I found this book to be thought provoking and informative, and was pleasantly surprised at how useful it was. Although it is aimed primarily at students, I believe this book would not only be useful for specialist registrars in occupational medicine, but may be of interest to a much wider cross-section including trainers, and senior practitioners.

Rating Rating

✰✰✰ (Borrow from the library)

✰✰✰✰ (Buy, read and keep) Steve Deacon

Kevin Holland-Elliot