ICOH aims at fostering the scientific progress, knowledge and development of occupational health and safety in all its aspects.
Today, ICOH is the world's leading international scientific society in the field of occupational health with a membership of 2,000 professionals from over 100 countries and is recognised by the United Nations as a non-governmental organisation (NGO) with close working relationships with ILO, WHO, UNEP and ISSA.
At the ICOH 2006 General Assembly, the President highlighted the overriding importance of permanent training and education of experts in order to face the rapidly changing world of work, the need to develop occupational health services throughout the world (including the development and dissemination of Basic Occupational Health Services – BOHS), the importance of creating BOHS guidelines, tools, training, and pilot projects and the intention of making a global survey on the OHS situation in ICOH member countries.
[1] Presidents: M. De Cristoforis 1906 – 1915, L. Devoto 1915 – 1936, D. Glibert 1936 – 1940, T. Stowell 1948 – 1951, P. Mazell 1951 – 1954, S. Forssman 1954 – 1969, L. Noro 1969 – 1975, E. Vigliani 1975 – 1981, R. Murray 1981 – 1987, S. Hernberg 1987 – 1993, J. F. Caillard 1993 – 2000, B. Knave 2000 – 2003, J. Rantanen 2003 – 2009, K. Kogi 2009 – 2015, J. Takala 2015 – 2022, S.K.
ICOH members also train the experts in occupational medicine and safety by using the research and criteria documents as a support for education.