4th annual International Occupational & Environmental Diseases Congress was held from 5 – 8 March 2020 at Istanbul, Turkey.

The Congress was organized by Biocidal Occupational & Environmental Health Association and Ministry of Health, Republic of Turkey and supported by ICOH Scientific Committees – SC Rural Health and SC Radiation and Work.

Congress Chair was Prof. Muhsin Akbaba from Cukurova University, Turkey and Congress Co Chair was Prof. Claudio Colosio from University of Milan, Italy.

From ICOH Scientific Committees, Prof. Claudio Colosio, Prof. Gert van der Laan and Prof. Frank van Dijk were among the Organizing Committee and Scientific Committee members. Prof.  Dr. March Wittlich,   Dr. Alberto Modenese and Dr. Stefan Mandic Rajcevic were among the Scientific Committee members. Dr. Sashikala Chandrasekar, Chair – SC Rural Health was one of the Organizing Secretaries.

About 150 Delegates participated in the Conference. From ICOH Prof. Gert van der Laan was the keynote speaker and he spoke on “Green Jobs, Safe Jobs? Workers Health and Safety in the Green Economy” (http://icohrural.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Green-Jobs-Safe-Jobs-Istanbul-2020.pdf).

Representatives from WHO, ILO, FAO, health and allied departments from Ministry of Health, Republic of Turkey and speakers from many other Institutions from Turkey also addressed the delegates in various sessions.

Dr. Buhara ÖNAL, ICOH National Secretary, Turkey chaired SC Rural Health a session. Prof. Gert van der Laan was one of the speakers for this session and his topic was “Workers Health Surveillance in Agriculture”. Prof. Gert van der Laan also chaired the abstract paper presentation sessions. Prof. Muhsin Akbaba, President of the Congress chaired the session on Occupational Health Safety Practices in Private sector.

Due to the Covid 19 emergency situation many ICOH Scientific Committee members from SC Rural Health and SC Radiation and Work could not take part as speakers in the Conference.