Work Healthy - Asthma, eczema and your career

About Work Healthy

Who is this website for?

Work Healthy is aimed at anyone who is in the process of choosing a training course or career. You may also find the information useful if you are a student mentor, careers advisor, school healthcare professional or parent.

Why?

Roughly one in five pupils in Europe has or has had eczema (see atopic eczema) or asthma. They are much more sensitive than others to things that irritate and damage the skin and the airways, and this may affect them during their training or future work. People with hand eczema or asthma, for example, may need to take sick leave or change their career, which is often a difficult process.

The Work Healthy website aims to raise awareness of the risk of asthma and eczema at work and ways of preventing problems.

Project group

Work Healthy has been put together by the Centre for Occupational and Environmental Medicine at Karolinska Institutet in conjunction with reference groups comprising school pupils, student mentors, careers advisors, school nurses and representatives from the Swedish Public Employment Service and the Swedish Work Environment Authority.

About Centre for Occupational and Environmental Medicine

We see patients with conditions caused or exacerbated by their working environment. These may include hand eczema, facial eczema and asthma. Some of our patients are young, some are at school or involved in some other form of training. We also research skin conditions and asthma. We have been commissioned by Stockholm County Council to prevent skin conditions and asthma that are related to the working environment. More about our work:

» www.folkhalsoguiden.se (Swedish)    » www.slso.sll.se/camm  

Funding

This website has been funded by grants from the Swedish National Institute of Public Health, AFA Trygghetsförsäkring and a public health grant from Stockholm County Council. Translation into English funded by European Society of Contact Dermatitis (ESCD).