Policy, Infrastructure, and Human Resource of Occupational Health Services in Japan

Occupational health policy in Japan was first established in 1911 with the promulgation of Factory Law. In 1938, its relevant ordinance stipulated employers'' obligations to assign a factory physician and to ask him/her to perform monthly walk through survey of workplace and annual health examinations of workers. These fundamental frameworks have been maintained until now. In 1972, Industrial Safety and Health Law introduced the new definitions of occupational physician, health supervisor, measurement system of working environment, and health committee. It was amended in 1996 and enforced employers to appropriately accommodate working environments based on the result of workers'' health examinations. In 2008, Labor Contract Law stipulated the employers’ obligation to perform necessary effort to guarantee safety and health of the worker, if the risk is reasonably foreseeable.  Along with the economic growth, many government-corporation commissioned associations were established to support spreading of these legislations and to develop technical base for occupational health services. They include Japan Industrial Safety and Health Association in 1964, Nationwide Labor Hygiene Group Federation in 1969, National Institute of Industrial Health in 1976, Safety and Health Examination Association in 1976, University of Occupational and Environmental Health, Japan in 1978, and Japan Association for Working Environment Measurement in 1979. Up until now, many good practices are promoted and awarded prizes by these associations.  In the field of human resource development, training course for occupational physician was launched by Japan Medical Association in 1965, followed by the establishment of their certification process in 1992, which has registered more than 82,000 physicians by 2011. Board examination of occupational physician was started by Japan Society for Occupational Health in 1993 and 426 physicians have been certified.  Assuring basic occupational health services in small-scale workplaces are the agendas still waited to be solved as well as newly emerging occupational health risks.