ACTIVITIES OF AN OCCUPATIONAL-HEALTH ORGANIZATION IN JAPAN, IN SPECIAL REFERENCE TO SERVICES FOR SMALL-SCALE AND MEDIUM-SCALE ENTERPRISES

This paper reports the activities of occupational health organizations in Japan, taking Nishinihon Occupational Health Service Center, one o f the largest scale occupational health service providers, as an examp le. The organizations, at the request of enterprises, provide occupati onal health services on a profit basis especially for small- and mediu m-scale enterprises which lack the human resources and/or facilities t o meet legal requirements on occupational health. The main services in clude: (1) providing various types of medical examinations for workers , (2) measuring work environment, (3) occupational physicians and occu pational health nurses providing a comprehensive service. Among these services, legally required health examinations and work environment me asurements are well served even for small-scale enterprises. Less effe ctive are the health promotion and occupational health service by the occupational health staffs. In the future, these services will be bett er provided by a newly developed network system to support occupationa l heath activities in small-scale enterprises.