6 Members of the DGUV and 34 central and regional Managers as well as Enumerators from NIOHP attended the virtual meeting.
On 1 March 2022, the DGUV and NIOHP organized the official Kick-Off to the Occupational Health side of the project. The DGUV technical team met with representatives of the NIOHP central office in Beijing, five NIOHP branch offices from the targeted pilot regions as well as a team of enumerators, the staff that will ultimately be responsible for carrying out the health survey using the collaboratively developed methodology. The 34-member team of occupational health and public health experts and officials was headed by Director Sun Xin of NIOHP.
NIOHP already sends enumerators into factories to conduct surveys and as such had conducted their own research into possible improvements previously, so they are very eager to learn from us now. The proposed agenda of the meeting was to include, after the initial round of introductions, an overview of the project, a presentation by NIOHP on their expectations from the pilot, the nomination of the Advisory Board members, the mandate of the Expert Working Group, the technical teams from both DGUV and NIOHP, a discussion on the main characteristics of the expected methodology as well as the scheduling of follow up meetings.
The expectations to the meeting were not only met, but very much exceeded. Not only did NIOHP propose to include health experts in the development of the questionnaire, as they know best which questions need to be asked for the hazards and the symptoms. NIOHP also directly confirmed the pilot regions for the project to be Zhejiang Province (Ningbo, Jinhua, Jiaxing, Taizhou) and Hunan province (Changsha, Zhuzhou). In sum, the partner could facilitate 38 enterprises to participate in the pilot, including 15 in Hunan province and 23 in Zhejiang province. The confirmed target industries are: machinery (including automotive), chemical, construction, mining and metal smelting.
Further it was agreed that the Expert Working Group should meet every two weeks to actively push forward the development of a new methodology. This initial Kick-Off was just the start of a hopefully fruitful collaboration that will measurably advance both the EUs and Chinas OSH policies through transparent international cooperation and standardisation.
