Occupational Health Hazard in India: Need for Surveillance and Research

Occupational health remains neglected in most developing countries due to competing social, economic, and political challenges. This has more to do with the fact that the demands are articulated by the less powerful i.e. the workers. Health care professionals not routinely obtaining occupational exposure history, long latency period of morbidities, lack of accurate data on toxic exposures and conflict of interest between the financial gains of the employer and the health of the worker are some of the major challenges to reporting of occupational events. Improved surveillance systems, stricter implementation of legislations, large scale clinical and epidemiological research and better educational opportunities are the need of the hour.