Opportunities of social media for Occupational Safety and Health: expectations for the near future and a defined global role

Rather than rely on the reputation of a newspaper, an expert, or a news-media outlet to carry our message, social media allows us to relate to workers and employers directly by creating our own content that is relevant, evidenced based, impactful, engaging, and motivates our audiences to share information with like minded people and most importantly to take appropriate action. It is critically important to realize that social media channels drive search engine optimization. Why is this important? Search engines continue to be a gateway to consumer choice in information, with 60% of US consumers using them to find and select the news and other information they want to receive. Trends in EU countries are similar. The trend toward more personalized media is even stronger among “influencers”- the 10 to 15 percent of the population who initiate changes in their organizations or community through a variety of activities- with 35 percent using both social networking sites and blogs and 72 percent using search engines. It is clear that social media is changing the information era in a decisive way and that occupational safety and health should take more advantage of this trend. New initiatives and developments will be presented, especially with the focus on the need for international collaboration and reaching and influencing those workers and companies without professional support in OSH matters. International collaboration is still not well developed. Ways will be explored how to move forward more quickly.  After this introduction we will try to answer the two general questions, (a) How to improve the quality and effectiveness of the existing international collaboration, (b) How to ‘translate’ and transfer quality knowledge, tools and learning materials toward workers and companies without professional support in OSH.