Global development and sharing of systematic reviews and guidelines

First a short introduction will be presented on the development of systematic reviews and evidence-based guidelines for Occupational Safety and Health. Special attention will be paid to the growing international collaboration that favors both quality and efficiency.   On July 30th, 2010 the Cochrane Occupational Health Field was transformed into the Cochrane Occupational Safety and Health Review Group. July 2011 there are 79 systematic reviews on specific OSH topics available in electronic format in The Cochrane Library. European national institutes started to collaborate in the production of reviews not dealing with interventions, a new PEROSH initiative. The development of evidence-based guidelines is well progressing. International collaboration can be mentioned between the Netherlands, Finland and UK. Recently in Luxemburg a course has been given to stimulate new initiatives. First contacts have been laid with a leading guideline developing group in Colombia, Latin America.   After the introduction we will try to answer the two general questions: (1) How to improve the quality and effectiveness of the existing international collaboration, both within their own field of expertise, but also aiming at the improvement of the quality and effectiveness of the knowledge infrastructure for OSH as a whole? (b) How to ‘translate’ and transfer quality knowledge, tools and learning materials toward workers and companies without professional support in OSH.