Prof Lode Godderis MD PhD
Advancing Health Surveillance for Better Mental Health Outcomes.
Description
Mental health problems are now among the leading causes of sickness absence, work disability, and reduced productivity worldwide. While workers’ health surveillance has traditionally focused on physical health risks, there is increasing interest in its role in preventing, identifying, and addressing mental health challenges in the workplace. This keynote explores the scientific evidence on the effectiveness of workers’ health surveillance, highlights practical challenges in its implementation, and discusses how surveillance can contribute to healthier, more resilient, and sustainable working lives.
Biography
Prof. Dr. Lode Godderis is Professor of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at KU Leuven, where he leads research on the interaction between work, health, and sustainable employability. He is also CEO of IDEWE, Belgium’s largest External Service for Prevention and Protection at Work, supporting thousands of organisations in creating healthier and safer workplaces.
His research focuses on understanding how occupational and environmental exposures influence health throughout the life course, and how health conditions affect work ability, labour market participation, and return-to-work outcomes. Particular areas of expertise include mental health at work, sustainable employability, return-to-work, the exposome, and chemical risk assessment.
At the European level, Prof. Godderis has played a leading role in several major research initiatives, including EPHOR (Exposome Project for Health and Occupational Research), HBM4EU (Human Biomonitoring for Europe), and METEOR (Mental Health: Focus on Retention of Healthcare Workers). He currently serves as Chair of MODERNET, an international network dedicated to identifying emerging occupational health risks and improving the surveillance of work-related diseases.
Through his academic, policy, and leadership roles, Prof. Godderis actively contributes to shaping the future of occupational health, with a strong focus on translating scientific evidence into practical strategies that improve workers’ health, wellbeing, and participation in work.
Prof Sara De Matteis MD, MPH, PhD
Occupational Respiratory Health Surveillance: Old and New Challenges in the 21st Century
Description
Occupational respiratory health continues to face both old and new challenges. Worker health surveillance remains a cornerstone of prevention but must continuously evolve to address both traditional and emerging workplace hazards while leveraging cutting-edge approaches to enable precision prevention. This keynote will provide an overview of the current international landscape and discuss future directions for occupational respiratory health surveillance.
Biography
Sara De Matteis, MD, MPH, PhD, is Full Professor of Occupational Medicine at the University of Turin, Italy, and Honorary Senior Lecturer at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, UK. She is an occupational physician and epidemiologist whose research focuses on the prevention and early detection of occupational and environmental respiratory diseases through epidemiology, worker health surveillance and, more recently, molecular epidemiology. She has led and collaborated on several large international epidemiological studies, including studies based on the UK Biobank cohort. She holds international leadership roles in occupational and respiratory health, serving as Chair of the European Respiratory Society (ERS) Group 6.02 (Occupational and Environmental Health) and Secretary of the ICOH Scientific Committee on Epidemiology in Occupational Health (EPICOH). She is a Fellow of the Collegium Ramazzini and the European Respiratory Society (FERS), and has received the ERS Mid-Career Gold Medal in Epidemiology and Environment.
Jack van der Gragt, MD, Occupational Physician, Fysiotherapist
Workers’ Health Surveillance in the construction industry; potential of a sector-based approach
Description
The Dutch construction industry has a long-lasting history of organizing Occupational Health collectively on sector level. An important activity in this is the conduct of periodic health examinations for all construction workers. Because the data are collected and stored centrally, group analysis of the results may give relevant clues for prevention. Two examples of this will be presented.
Biography
Jack van der Gragt is an occupational physician with a background in physiotherapy and human movement science, specializing in the construction and infrastructure sector. He is currently pursuing a PhD trajectory with Dr Paul Kuijer on "From Risk perception to control over the knee," focused on knee-loading disorders in physically demanding work. At Volandis, the Dutch knowledge and advisory center for Occupational Health in construction and infrastructure workers, he has developed several practical interventions to reduce occupational physical strain, while continuing to personally conduct numerous periodic health examinations for construction and infrastructure workers. He brings a perspective that bridges scientific evidence, policy-level intervention, and daily clinical practice in physically demanding trades in construction industry.
