On May 14th 2015, China National Health and Family Planning Commission issued the draft List of Occupational Hazard Factors. The draft list will be open for public comment until Jun 15th 2015.
As a supportive document to the Law on the Prevention and Control of Occupational Diseases, the current List of Occupational Hazard Factors was issued in 2002. It is an important part of the legal framework to safeguard the life, health and other rights of the labor force. As the industry has developed in tandem with advances in the field of medicine and occupational disease therapeutics, the articles of the old law have become overtasked to effectively manage the current state of the industry and has thus required development of a more comprehensive and suitable regulation.
According to the draft revision, the previous 10 major categories of occupational hazard factors are reduced to the following 6:
Dust
Chemical factors
Physical factors
Radioactive factors
Biological factors
Other factors
The existing “hazard factors that cause occupational skin disease” are split and combined into the 6 categories above. The detailed occupational hazard factors have also been expanded from 133 to 460 items. There are also examples of different industries and types of work, which will be issued later in the form of supporting guidance documents.
