Partners

Free webinar - Occupational Health in Action

IOHA is excited to announce its next webinar will be taking place on Thursday the 29th of January 2026 at 6.00am - 7.30am New Zealand Time.

Click here to register.

As an occupational physician, Dr. Obele sees every day that the future of occupational health depends on the strength of occupational hygiene. Looking toward 2030 and beyond, Dr. Obele is asking occupational hygienists to claim their role not only as technical specialists, but as strategic partners in shaping the health of workforces and communities worldwide. The discipline’s power to anticipate, measure, and control exposures anchors prevention, yet prevention must be woven into clinical care, organisational design, and policy to create lasting impact. The vision is integration.

When hygienists co-design with occupational physicians, nurses, ergonomists, mental health professionals, and safety leaders, guided by data science and informed by worker voice, we can deliver outcomes that matter: earlier detection of risk, sharper exposure controls, declining occupational disease, reduced inequities across sectors and regions,
stronger organizational resilience and productivity, and measurable contributions to global sustainability goals.

In this session, she will discuss practical steps for 2026 that move us toward that future: shared exposure–illness dashboards; joint medical–hygiene case conferences and walk-throughs; risk-informed medical surveillance and return-to-work pathways; procurement standards that eliminate hazards at the source; and cross-sector advocacy for
“healthy work by default”. Her call call to hygienists is simple: lead. Bring the science of hygiene to the centre of decision-making so that occupational health becomes not reactive, but transformative, ensuring every worker, everywhere, can thrive in safety, health, and dignity.