Strategic Reviews
The IOM provides reviews and strategic advice about health issues associated with environmental and workplace pollution to a wide range of organisations including government, industry and trade associations in the UK and internationally.
Our authoritative advice helps clients in the formulation of policies and decision making and is normally based on a comprehensive review of the available information integrating a range of information types. The benefits that IOM offers to clients are our independent status, our experience of working in multidisciplinary teams and our wide practical experience of addressing issues of health and safety in the work place and more general environment. Our in-house expertise cuts across traditional boundaries of toxicology, medicine and exposure assessment to deliver an authoritative independent viewpoint.
Strategic reviews are integral to several of our other activities including health impact assessment and chemical risk management.
Our reviews provide industry with increased confidence in their conclusions and independent external validation. This can be of particular value to industry in environmental issues with high public concern.
Recent examples of our review and advisory work includes:
- Multiple reviews in the area of nanomaterials safety, including recommendations for research priorities, for DEFRA and the European Commission
- Scoping occupational exposure monitoring and health surveillance for the metals and mining industry
- Assessment and commentary on the potential health risks from polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in contaminated land
- Drafting a practical guide for safe working with asbestos, for the European Commission
- A survey and review of employers sickness absence tools for the HSE
- Benzene and leukaemia risk studies review, for the petroleum industry
In relation to public sector workplace health, we conducted a systematic review of the Physical Health of Health Practitioners, commissioned by the Department of Health for the Health of Health Professionals Group to identify physical health risks in health professionals. The work fed into the publication of the document 'Invisible Patients' by DH.
Further work has included a systematic review for the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council (IIAC) examining occupational health risks in firefighters. The report was commissioned to assist the Council in advising the Government on the prescription of industrial diseases in this occupational group.
Guidance
At IOM we frequently use our expertise to develop best practice guidance for the public or private sector. We use the best available emerging knowledge to develop guidance which is state-of-the-art yet practical and useable. Two recent examples are a good practice guide on occupational health risk assessment which we developed for ICMM and a guide to safe handling of nanomaterials developed for BSI (BSI6699-2).
IOM scientists and consultants also provide a wide range of input in to the activities of standardisation organisations including BSI, ISO, and CEN and are active members of many committees across the wide range of our activities.