XXII World Congress on Safety and Health at Work was held from 20 to 23, September 2021 in a virtual mode. The congress was organised by the Institute for Work & Health (IWH) and the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS) with International Labour Organization (ILO) and International Social Security Association (ISSA).
The theme of the congress was “Prevention in the connected age – global solutions to achieve safe and healthy work for all”. The main topics were, innovations in addressing longstanding safety and health challenges, implications of the changing world of work for occupational safety and health and advancing a culture of prevention.
In the Inaugural session on 20 September, Dr. Cameron Mustard, President, International Organizing Committee of the Congress and IWH, Ms. Anne Tennier, President, CCOHS, Mr. Guy Ryder, Director-General, ILO and Dr. Joachim Breuer, President, ISSA participated along with other speakers from Government of Canada and ILO.
The congress was a platform for about 2000 delegates from all over the globe for meeting virtually. There were 6 technical sessions, 21 symposia with more than 200 speakers from around the world and over 400 poster presentations. International media festival for safety and prevention, health and safety exhibition, youth spotlight and global forum for work injury insurance were other attractions of the congress.
In the technical session on – Regulating OSH in future of work – New forms of work, workers, employers, workplaces and working relationships, Dr. Jukka Takala, President, International Commission on Occupational Health was a speaker. New forms of work using new technologies & the increase of self-employed make it difficult to implement regulations for compliance on occupational safety and health. Challenges in the new world of work and innovative practices on preparing for the future of work was discussed in this session.
In another technical session on – OSH resilience and sustainability in enterprises, Prof. Seong-Kyu Kang, Vice President, ICOH was a speaker. As an emerging concept, resilience in OSH management enhances an organization’s capacity to respond to unexpected and complex risk management situations. The potential to enhance safety management systems and resilience in an organization was dealt in this session.
Dr. Sashikala Chandrasekar, Chair, Scientific Committee Rural Health was a speaker in the two symposia organized by ISSA. The symposium organized by ISSA Transportation was on — The impact of digitalisation on OSH in global transportation and logistics – Possibilities for the success of the Vision Zero strategy. Technological developments and innovative approaches to strengthen a culture of prevention in transportation for the way forward to Vision Zero were in the focus for this session.
The symposium organized by ISSA Agriculture was on — Safety culture in farming: Growing from generation to generation. The theme of this session included good practices, innovative solutions and effective management to advance safety culture in agriculture which are very much needed for this vital sector.
The Brain Dates session for delegates was a new addition to the congress program. This was meant for discussion about a specific subject for a small group of delegates who were interested in that particular topic and was available for one-on-one discussion also. Many delegates participated in these sessions with interest. Dr. Sashikala Chandrasekar proposed the topic – Gender Equality, Safety and Health at Workplace. It was conducted twice for two groups of delegates and both the sessions were attended by maximum number of delegates for each session and were well received.