The Economic and Social Implications of Health and Safety at Work

CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PAPERS

The Economic and Social Implications of Health and Safety at Work
Università Cattolica, Milan, 2 – 3 July 2010

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Harvey M. Brenner University of North Texas and Berlin University of Technology
Maarten M. Lindeboom University of Amsterdam

The HEALTH at WORK Co-ordination Action and the IEIL at the Universita’ Cattolica invite contributed papers and participants for the conference on the theme ‘Health and Safety at Work’

In the face of rapid changes in the modern economic environment, the lack of provision of health and safety at work entails considerable economic and social costs. Occupational safety and health (OSH) policies are necessary on both efficiency and equity grounds. Public policy at the EU level needs to be informed on OSH infrastructure, hazards/working conditions; and OSH outcomes for the labour markets. The need for up-to-date information on OSH is of critical importance for the purposes of identifying areas of required action and for setting priorities for future developments in the EU.

Programme
The theme of the conference is the assessment of the economic contexts, institutional structures and policy frameworks on occupational safety and health with the objective of identifying areas of policy action.
The aim of the conference is to provide a better understanding of the economic implications of health at work, bringing together the contributions of different disciplines: economics, sociology, occupational health and epidemiology. Cross-cutting and/or cross-country contributions are particularly welcome. The following list of themes is meant as a non-limiting indication of options for paper submissions.
• The relationship between health and working conditions at the workplace
• The economic costs borne by the worker and the firm from adverse work-related health conditions
• The role of work-environment health and safety practices in relation to the productivity of the firm
• The overall impact of work-related health on a set of relevant outcomes for individual workers and their firms (such as injury rates, absenteeism due to health reasons and quits)
• Occupational health and safety at work related to gender and age issues in light of the feminisation of the labour market and an ageing population
• The social and economic value of improvement of health at work and its contribution to the improvement of the quality of the job, job satisfaction and reduction of lost time at work
• Compensation for adverse working conditions
• Health and safety at work indicators research
• Absenteeism and accidents at work

Submission
Contributors should submit a full draft paper in PDF format by 30 March 2010, to Ioannis Theodossiou (theod@abdn.ac.uk) and Claudio Lucifora (claudio.lucifora@unicatt.it). Decisions on acceptance will be announced by 30th April 2010. It is planned to publish selected papers from the conference programme as a special issue of a journal. Papers to be considered for selection must be delivered in finalised form at the conference, with the full text submitted by 1 August 2010.

Fees and registration
Participation fee (meetings, access to papers, lunches and conference dinner): £ 150 (£ 80 for PhD students). Please use the following payment and registration facility at http://www.abdn.ac.uk/haw/.

SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE
Ioannis Theodossiou and David McCausland (University of Aberdeen) and Claudio Lucifora and Elena Cottini (Università Cattolica Milan).
LOCAL COMMITTEE
Americo Cicchetti, Elena Cottini, Claudio Lucifora and Severino Sterpi (Università Cattolica Milan).
SECRETARIAT
Ms. Daniela Archetti, IEIL
UNIVERSITÀ CATTOLICA DEL SACRO CUORE, LARGO GEMELLI 1 - 20123 MILANO
Phone: +39.02.72342976, Fax: +39.02.72342781 - E-mail: ist.eil@unicatt.it

HEALTH AT WORK
UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN BUSINESS SCHOOL, UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN, AB24 3QY

Phone/email (Theodossiou): +44.1224.272183 theod@abdn.ac.uk
Phone/email (McCausland): +44.1224.272180 d.mccausland@abdn.ac.uk

HEALTH AT WORK website: http://www.abdn.ac.uk/haw/

The project ‘An Inquiry into the Health and Safety at Work; a European Union Perspective’ (HEALTH at WORK) is a Coordination and Support Action (Supporting) project financed by the European Commission, FP7, (Grant Agreement: no.: 200716). It brings together some thirty European researchers working on issues related to health and safety at work in the European Union.