Labour laws are promulgated in Vietnam from 1994. However, regulations about occupational safety and health are only one chapter in the labor laws. In the years of the 2000s, Vietnam's economy has grown very quickly, especially in the field of industrial production and construction, materials manufacture, quarrying, etc. In addition, must be considered the increased rapidity of small and medium enterprises, the number of this enterprises proportion more than 80% of the Vietnamese economy. So, the numbers of fatal accidents and diseases were increasing at construction sites and quarrying. In this context, the Occupational Safety and Health law (OSH law) were issued in 2015. The content and all the guidelines of this law, has focused on making the management regulations about safety to prevent accidents for employees at the workplaces. Moreover, regulations about risk assessment and controlling of hazards in workplaces also prescribed for the companies with a high risk. And, this regulation also prescribed for small and medium enterprises in Vietnam. After four years (from 2015 to now), the accident rate at workplaces has decreased in the sectors of quarrying, construction, materials manufacture, oil and gas. This indicates that OSH law and all the guidelines, regulations about system of accident prevention and occupational diseases, risk assessment and controlling of hazards in workplaces are actually being implemented effectively in Vietnam.

The growth of the global economy continues to shift numerous low skilled manufacturing jobs to low and middle-income countries. In addition, the increasing demand for processing of recyclables such as e-waste, plastics, and used-lead acid batteries has generated additional economic opportunities for low and middle income countries. The burning of copper wires and cables from e-waste processing is a growing trend that continues to not only pollute urban air but also presents a significant worker respiratory risk. Used automotive lead-acid batteries are also recovered, dismantled and smelted for lead ingot production. And of course, a variety of plastics are collected, sorted and sold for reprocessing with little to no worker protection. The vast majority of these tasks fall on the neediest portion of the population and usually in the low income countries. While data exists on global work related injuries and illnesses, the difficulty in quantifying the burden of occupational illness in this sector often leaves them undetected, and, unfortunately, ignored. Using a series of cases studies, significant exposure issues and challenges facing workers in several growing “industries” in several low and middle income countries will be presented and reviewed. These case studies will showcase the findings of the recent Lancet report on Pollution and Health with specific interpretations and applications to occupational hygiene.

Professional ethics is a branch of applied ethics, which has its roots in the principles of antique Hippocrat (460-370 BC) then formalized and generalized by Plato (428?-348 BC) and Aristotele (384-322 BC). Today applied ethics is considered to have several branches, including Medical ethics, Bio-ethics, Cyber Ethics, Environmental Ethics, Personal Ethics, Professional Ethics, Public Ethics, International Ethics and so on.
Several professional organizations on occupational health and safety, including IOHA and ICOH, IEA, IALI have drawn codes of ethics or codes of conduct for the memberships. In these codes, the core principles in professional ethics have remained the same since times of Hippocrat, but certain variation in the contents are observed and a number of additional dimensions have been included in the course of development of the working life. The key principles found in the codes are:
• Autonomy: Respecting autonomy of the client
• Beneficence: Doing good: Protection of Life and obligation to help those in need
• Non-maleficence: Not doing bad, avoiding harm
• Objectivity: Basing judgements and decisions on evidence and or recognized professional experience
• Confidentiality: Keeping and protecting the individuals’ secrets
• Collegiality: Respecting fellow professionals
• Competence: Maintaining and continuously developing professional knowledge and skill
• Moderation of financial rewards in relation to service and the ability of the client to pay.
Numerous threats hurt the professional ethical principles in the contemporary world of work, for example:
• Value relativism
• Excessive competition
• Dominance of economic dimension
• High rhythm of work life
• New unexperienced events and activities
• Ethical incompetence
• Conflict between institutional/organizational ethics vs. professional ethics
• Dramatic business scandals (=collapses of business ethics) even in giant multinational corporations.
Several professionals have reported “ethical stress” at work due to conflict between their professional values and unethical principles of cultures of communities and organizations. Protecting professional ethics is not only the benefit of professionals themselves, but important for the whole international and national communities, enterprises, workers and public at large, i.e. common good. The seven guiding principles by the UK Government Chief Scientific Advisor, sir David King are.
• Act with skill and care, keep skills up to date
• Prevent corrupt practice and declare conflicts of interest
• Respect and acknowledge the work of other scientists
• Ensure that research is justified and lawful
• Minimise impacts on people, animals and the environment
• Discuss issues science raises for society
• Do not mislead; present evidence honestly.
High and up to date competence behind the professional independence and support by professional Associations, their ethics codes, support to members and collegial support by fellow-members are crucial in maintaining the principles of professional ethics in the contemporary globalizing world of work. International professional Associations in occupational health and safety should recognize their roles as guardians of professional ethics, they could collaborate more intensively in promotion of ethical dimension in the globalising world of work and provide support for the implementation of the key ethics principles in the everyday life of their memberships.

The interdisciplinary field of exposure science, which includes knowledge of chemistry, biology, statistics and epidemiology, is a crucial component of identifying causes of cancer and other health effects in humans using epidemiologic studies. This talk will focus on state-of-the-art approaches used in population-level studies of cancer and chronic diseases. This includes new approaches for occupational data collection from study participants and linking their questionnaire responses to measurement-based exposure estimates to derive exposure estimates for their entire working life that can be used in epidemiologic studies. To illustrate this, two case studies will be presented: exposure to metalworking fluids and bladder cancer risk and exposure to biologically active dusts in agricultural settings (e.g., endotoxin) and lung cancer risk.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) account for 97.6% of businesses in Taiwan, and they are important contributors to job creation and economic development. However, SMEs often have higher rates of occupational accidents and worse working environment compared to large enterprises due to the limited resources. To improve the problems and promote occupational hygiene capabilities for SMEs, tiered management based on risk ranking and multiple approaches of compliance inspection, counseling and outreach programs have adopted by Occupational safety and Health Administration of the Ministry of Labor in Taiwan (Taiwan OSHA).
In respect of chemical management, Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act) has introduced the tools of chemical control banding for exposure assessment. To master the patterns about how to carry out the exposure assessment by enterprises, there are multiple ways utilized including propaganda, counseling and on-site visiting by professional counselors. From 2016 to 2019, Taiwan OSHA has collected patterns from more than 10,000 SMEs. Furthermore, Taiwan OSHA has devised a special subsidy program to assist SMEs to employ or contract medical personnel to conduct occupational health services in accordance with OSH Act.
In the so-called 3D (difficult, dirty and dangerous) traditional manufacturing industry, Taiwan OSHA assists SMEs to improve the working environment by site counseling and subsidies providing up to US$ 80,000 for each enterprise. From 2014 to 2019, Taiwan OSHA has cooperated with three industries: casting, surface treatment, and dyeing and finishing of textile industry, encouraged more than 150 enterprises to build the working environment safer and healthier, promoted industry investment that totals about US$89 million, and approved subsidies of nearly US$4.33 million.

The world of work is changing, and changing at a rapid pace. New technologies, globalization , demographic changes along with climate change will continue to impact occupational health of working populations globally. The purpose is to provide a brief overview of the occupational health challenges that we face vis-à-vis Future of Work. The presentation will include some historical and contemporary background on how technology in the past, present and future is a bane and a boon for occupational health. Specifically we will look at issues of occupational health as it relates to digital platforms, but also other topics of relevance to the future of work. The presentation will conclude with challenges that future work poses for practitioners, regulators and researchers.

The Chinese government has always attached great importance to occupational health. In recent years, China has achieved remarkable achievements in the field of occupational disease prevention and control . However, due to the rapid development of industrialization and urbanization in China, the problems of occupational diseases accumulated in decades of extensive development are gradually emerging, and the situation of prevention and control of work-related diseases is still very serious. The number of occupational disease reports remains high. Occupational hazards are widely distributed, and the number of enterprises and workers involved is large. A considerable number of enterprises, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, do not fulfill their main responsibilities, lacking of basic protective facilities and effective personal protective equipment, and the occupational hazards in some workplace seriously exceed the standards of the occupational exposure limits. Some workers who are not well educated, lack the basic self-protection knowledge, or neglect health protection.
At present, the Chinese government has taken effective measures to strengthen occupational health, including organizing and carrying out key actions for prevention and treatment of pneumoconiosis, improving the legal system and supervision system of occupational health, strengthening the training of occupational health professionals and relevant personnel, improving the capacity of occupational health technical services for small and medium-sized enterprises, organizing and implementing Occupational Health Protection Action, enhancing the international exchanges and cooperation.