Course for specialists in occupational safety and health from Latin America

Abstract

Every year millions of workers die due to health and safety hazards at work. This occurs especially in developing countries, where challenges related to the work conditions are often
similar. To improve this situation, the Centre of International Health offers an international.

Objective: Training course for specialists in Occupational Health and Safety, where they can interact, develop new ideas and generate improvement of the working conditions in their countries.

Methodology: The teaching methods of the first three courses included interactive lectures, project-based learning, presentations, group discussions and the setting-up of a protocol-based epidemiological study. Participants from different professions worked together during two weeks, which has contributed to the exchange of new ideas and the enrichment of the multicultural level and diversity of the courses.

Results: All of the 80 participants successfully completed the two-week course. They each designed a protocol-based epidemiological research project, the majority of which have already been implemented or are in their implementation phase. In the evaluation survey all of the participants agreed that the mixture of different professional backgrounds was enriching and they also pointed the excellent quality of the tutors out. Consequently a network in Occupational Health and Safety has been created amongst the participants.

Conclusions: The three international and interdisciplinary courses “Occupational Health Crossing Borders” were considered to be a very positive experience for the participants, as well as the tutors. Since 2012, these courses are part of the International Master’s in Occupational Health and Safety of the Ludwig-Maximilian-Universität from Munich, Germany.