New global health and safety portal

In September 2005, the EU Agency for Safety and Health at Work announced the launch of its new online information portal.

On 20 September 2005, the first global portal to occupational safety and health (OSH) was launched at http://osha.eu.int. The portal is operated by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EASHW), which was set up by the EU to help meet the information needs in the field of occupational safety and health. Based in Bilbao, Spain, EASHW aims to improve the lives of people at work by stimulating the flow of technical, scientific and economic information between all those involved in OSH issues.

The new information resource offers the following services:

• an information search by risk types, sectors or groups;

• an online thesaurus in 20 languages, which groups terms by subject and lists all records containing the sector keyword;

• customisation of the site according to individual requirements in terms of OSH topics, languages and countries;

• a good practice section, which will provide cases to serve as examples for use in organisations;

• easy navigation of national sites maintained across Europe and access to international partner sites in the USA, Canada, Australia, Korea and Japan;

• downloading of agency publications such as online fact sheets or specialised magazines from the online library; and

• access to noise prevention information developed to support the 2005 European Week for health and safety at work, which is running from 24-28 October. The anti-noise campaign was launched in April 2005 (EU0505201N).

When Hans-Horst Konkolewsky, the director of EASHW, addressed the 17th World Congress on Health and Safety at Work held in Orlando, USA, on 18-22 September 2005, he welcomed the portal’s launch, saying: 'Our new website is the first global portal to occupational safety and health information for people involved in risk prevention at work. Today’s global economy requires global cooperation. We expect the joint website to facilitate exchange of know-how between OSH experts and practitioners from around the world and to provide a new global platform for prevention'.

This information is made available through the European Industrial Relations Observatory (EIRO), as a service to users of the EIROnline database. EIRO is a project of the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions. However, this information has been neither edited nor approved by the Foundation, which means that it is not responsible for its content and accuracy. This is the responsibility of the EIRO national centre that originated/provided the information. For details see the "About this record" information in this record.