Introduction to the Special Section on Psychological and Behavioral Approaches to Occupational Health

The history of the International Commission on Occupational Health is deeply bound to that of the 20th century. First and only international scientific society of such an importance, it was founded in 1906 to bring solutions to the problems caused by a great number of occupational injuries and diseases due to the developing of industry. With the passing years, from a small medical group it has become a multidisciplinary society, present in 90 countries, where researchers, government authorities, and practitioners are coexisting in a permanent exchange between practice and research. It is composed of international scientific committees, which organize regular conferences and meet every 3 years on the occasion of the great International Congress in Occupational Health. Owing to the changes due to the new technologies of work and to the globalization of economy, the orientation of its activities is in progress: larger opening toward developing countries and the phenomenon of development in general, emphasis on prevention in occupational health, and opening of a new field of research on the psychosocial factors and work organization. At the first conference on this theme, held in Copenhagen in August 1998, occupational health and occupational psychology specialists met. Indeed, new approaches are needed, like the setting up of adapted tools to face the consequences of these factors on health and the construction of a new paradigm of occupational health. Today, both the transcultural approach of the problems of occupational health and the ethical thought on fundamental values are necessary.